When you see the photo I’m about to share and read the story behind what happened, you’ll know why I’m thinking I had a guardian angel looking over my shoulder Friday morning. I was on the way to an appointment in Waukesha Friday morning. It was just after 10:30 and I got on 894 heading north toward the zoo interchange. I merged onto I-94 WB which puts you in the left lane. shortly thereafter, my car starting shaking and I heard a weird noise (that did not sound like the engine). Somehow, I managed to cross all the lanes of traffic and get to the right hand shoulder at about Elm Grove Road. I waited for a safe chance to get out of the car (so much for that move over or slow down law)… and this is what I saw:
HOLY CRAP. Do you see that? Seriously, I have NO idea how I got to the shoulder without getting in an accident. Luckily, I have steel rims and somehow the rim was not harmed at all. Again, wow. Can you imagine how this would have looked if it was alloy? Now, here is where I wasn’t sure what to do.
1. I don’t know how to change a tire.
2. I don’t have AAA
So I did what any respecting adult woman would do. I called my mom.
She came and met me on the freeway and then we called AAA using her card. They said they’d have someone there within the hour. While we were waiting, a state patrolman stopped to make sure we were ok and gave me the number for his office in case the AAA guy didn’t come soon. He was very nice. I was very surprised that he stopped, but my mom reminded me that before cell phones, all you COULD do was wait for cops to show up. (seriously, what did we do before cell phones?)
Finally, the guy showed up to change the tire… and put on my itty bitty baby spare. Here’s him hard at work:
He had some problems getting it off, which makes me think that even if I did try to change it myself, there’s no way I would have actually gotten it off.
When my dad got home from work, I had him take a look at the tire and we found a huge nail in it. That was the culprit. Of course, if I would have noticed it was going flat, I probably could have gotten the tire patched for much less moola. $175 later and a trip to Sears, I have a new tire.
Here’s a little layout I did about the ordeal. Click on it to see a bigger version.
