Gettin' TIREd

Turns out, I am a daredevil.

No fancy cape or nothin, just a normal guy risking his life by driving around with bad tires.

This according to the shmuckface non-mechanic who you first meet when you walk into the tire store.

Tony Shmuckatelli (the mechanic) is never happy with his customers. They are all at his shop because they have abused their cars to the point where just puttin in gas won't solve the problem. So you must sit in the car-abusers time-out room. The duration of your time-out is directly proportional to the amount of abuse you've inflicted on your poor Hyundai. Driving over a nail gets you one hour, while forgetting to have your radiator flushed gets you a whole day. So you will sit and watch the Static Network or read the maintenance brochures of what you should have done to avoid your punishment. Either way, you're screwed.

I got a screw in my tire. Not a huge to-do. The tire wasn't flat. It just made a clickin sound everytime it rolled around atop the screwhead. Like a high hat cymbal, only louder. I kinda liked it. Anyway, I figured they'd pull it out, plug it up, and send me on my patched up little way...

I was wrong.

First off, my wiper blades were beginning to show signs of wear. And as we all know, wiper blades are the first thing you check when you are patching a tire.

I also was getting close to needing an oil change. And if I was a good car owner, I would want to take care of this , NOW!

He was kind enough to drag me out to mechanicland and point out that I should not be driving around on these tires, and today was my lucky day! They were having a sale on my size tires!

And if I didn't have the 9 bills up front, they would finance me up to my poorly oiled door hinges.

The idiot then makes sure everyone else in the oil smellin holding tank, hears my problems and how I just don't love my car enough to pay his guilt-ridden ransome.

I walked out with my $13 tire patch receipt, head hangin a little low, and got into my truck feeling like the most neglectful car owner on the planet.

Thanks for the guilt trip, pinhead.