Sunday, February 28, 2010

The Tale of the Incredible Car-Eating Pothole

Basically, this week has been a big comedy of errors, some of which I can laugh about now, and some of which ... well, we just won't talk about those.

But, I will tell you the one that perhaps takes the cake. It's definitely funny, but in the "Oh dear god this is really my life" kind of way. Mmmk? Mmmk.

So, I live in a city that may or may not have hosted the G-20 last year. While it was freaking annoying to have our city overtaken for about a week (but cancelled classes, yay!) the one truly great thing about hosting was that the city finally fixed all the damn potholes in the already narrow, curvy, and hilly roads. It was a glorious time to live in the city.

That is, until the Snowpocalypse. Because, you see, the city evidently blew its wad on the G-20, or on strippers and candy (or strippers named Candy) and almost unilaterally refused to plow the freaking roads. And we all know what that means -- potholes the size of Texas. Generally we've been very careful about driving around them, but occasionally one opens up almost before our eyes and you get that unpleasant jolt that only a pothole can provide.

Unfortunately, it's not just inconvenient anymore. The potholes have started devouring cars. The Boy and I were out driving to get dinner after our evening class this past Wednesday. It was around 7:30, so quite dark, and we were headed down a busy street, when all of a sudden there was a very large jolt, followed by much of the Boy's swearing. Initially, we thought we were fine, but about 10 seconds later, we realized the tire was completely flat.

To our credit, we were one of four cars pulled over for the same purpose, and one of those other three had two flat tires (and another whose occupants were a college-aged couple who had no jack, no tire iron, and, as it turned out after we helped them, a flat spare). We (and by we, I mean the Boy) went about changing the tire with the crappy jack that came with the car, while I stood there holding the lug nuts and occasionally cranking the jack while the Boy figured out which way the tire was supposed to go on, and traffic sped past, honking and flipping us off. After we got the tire off, we discovered that the rim had a very serious crease in it, and we have yet to find a shop that is in the business of replacing rims.

So, we're driving my Cobalt exclusively for the next few days, until the Boy gets his situation figured out. And on that note, if any of you out there on the interwebz know a guy in my town who will replace the rim in a Ford Focus, please leave me a comment.

1 comment:

  1. That's awful!

    Is there some way to get the city to reimburse you for the flat tire and the rim? Maybe that's just wishful thinking...

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