I wish I was here

This day hasn’t started well. First I struggle to get out of bed this morning. For some reason I fell asleep at 10:22 tired turning off the TV, having had Tia drift off at 9:30, almost in the middle of a conversation. I locked up the cats, watched a little TV and then went down myself. However I woke up at 3:00am or so and struggled to go back to sleep.

At least until about 6:00 when I was definitely asleep because at 6:05, the alarm was a surprise. I pulled myself out of bed and went to pull Delaney up. He was struggling to get going, and as he started to get dressed at 6:25, he asked if I could drive him or did he need to hurry. I had a 9am call, I was tired, and agreed.

We drove to school, dropped him off, laughing at some Michael Winslow on the way.

I went to the gas station, got a cup of coffee, still tired, and got back in the car. I was checking an email when a guy walked up, knocked on the window and pointed to my rear tire.

Flat.

That didn’t worry me and I drove across the parking area to the air pump. I inserted by $0.75, and started filling the tire. It was slow, but I got to about 30 lbs and I heard a creak. I stopped and looked at the tire, which had a small bulge on it. As I watched, the tire below the bulge expanded and it looked like it might have gotten crimped when it ran flat. 30lbs is a little low, so I added about 2-3 more seconds of air, thinking I’d get to 35lbs and stop when

BOOM!

The tire exploded, fortunately out the back. It was loud and my ears rang for a minute, but everything was fine. I got in the car, sat there for a minute, and sipped some coffee while my chest stopped vibrating from the compression wave. It wasn’t a big deal overall, but it was piling on a day that was a struggle to start.

I got out the jack and wrench, and jacked up the car and pulled off the tire.

It only took about 10 minutes to change it, and then I was back in the car and heading home. Now I need to get it fixed because the spare is a mini-spare. These tires aren’t that old, so I’m not sure what went wrong, but probably just some defect in the tire.

I looked at the tire when I got home and it split along the back, similar to the one from the Porsche last week. Two tires in two weeks. Not a good trend.