The Screw

I ran some errands this morning while my husband worked at home and answered my tracked-out daughter’s seven-hundred questions about everything and anything.   I returned to the house just in time for my husband to put his golf clubs in the car to head out to a charity golf tournament.  

I thought he’d gone but my daughter came into the kitchen from the garage and told me I had to come out to hear the noise.   The noise was a good catch by my husband who heard the hissing of the passenger rear tire in my car deflating via the impaling of a large screw in our nearly new tire.

Quick, grab my daughter, explain there was an emergency she didn’t understand that was time-sensitive and head to the tire store to get the tire plugged before it went completely flat as we were already down to 27 psi and it was dropping fast.   Seriously, had my husband not heard the hissing we would have had a whole other problem on our hands as there's no spare tire in the car and I would have had to re-inflate the tire most likely leaving my son stranded at school until I got everything sorted in the garage.

But never fear, I was on the way to the tire store.   Was my husband sure I should go to that particular store, I asked?  Last time they said it was, “better” to get a new tire.   And I didn’t like that answer.    No no, my husband assured me, the only thing they could possibly have any concern about was the foam layer in the tire—but don’t mention it unless they bring it up.

So of course they bring it up.   It’s not a safety thing.   It’s not a re-inflation thing.   It’s a noise reduction thing.   All you have to do is cut out the insulation around the screw/nail and patch as normal.  I’d been on the phone with Tesla service on the ride there and they’d said that’s all you needed to do.    But did the tire place balk?   Oh yeah.    Wouldn’t do it.   Wouldn’t let me take the risk of it being a wee bit more noisy as the tire went around and around.   Wasn’t sure it it was safe.

My daughter is now scared because I used the word, “emergency” to get her moving at the house and I now can’t dissuade her that it’s all going to be okay.  This isn’t made any better because I’ve been agitated.   And then I lose my temper.   I’ve been back on the phone with Tesla, on speaker phone with the service center folks telling the tire place it’s fine, just patch it.  But they don’t feel comfortable.

I don’t like losing my temper but at this point I had my husband on speaker phone now and the guy is saying their other store won’t do it either.   He’s calling headquarters or something, I don’t know.   I’m using all manner of foul words as I describe this to my husband on speaker phone.   My daughter is still worried but I’ve given her my iPad and she’s repairing cars on some children’s app and seems okay.

Then things sort of changed, which was interesting.   This man, whom I’d just yelled at, telling him how frustrated I was at their store, was contacting Michelin to get see if they could more information and possibly do the patch.  Had the tire company said it was okay, then they’d do it.   In the meantime, while I stand around texting my husband looking for alternate tire locations, this guy is calling their competitors, asking if they would do the repair.   He called five places and the fifth one said that sure, they do those types of tires, no problem.    I call this store myself to see if they could, “sure, no problem” do it right now on account of my tire was losing about one psi every two minutes.    “yeah, come on over” they say, “we can do it right now”.

I told the guy who I’d yelled at that I was very sorry.   He said don’t worry about it.   I said, no, I was sorry that I had lost my temper and it wasn’t his fault and that even though I was rude, he had tried to help me, even calling his competitors.   He then said, “here’s the thing—no one wants ever to come to the tire store.  So I get it all day long and I don’t take it personally.”   Yeah, well I did, because I wasn’t polite to him.   I gave him a tip he didn’t initially want to take but I told him I insisted.   He was a young guy but he made an impression on me.

So now we’re back to the leaking tire problem.    I drove those four miles down the same main road to this other tire place and they pulled the car in, told me to come back in an hour (my daughter and I went to lunch) and that—get this—it was all free.   Hold on?  I didn’t buy the tires from them.   That’s okay, company policy.   They hope we’ll choose to buy tires from them in the future.   Compelling practice if you ask me.

The two people who helped me told me they didn’t understand why other companies had trouble with the tires, it was just a sound dampening layer.   I said I didn’t know but I was going to do one thing and that was to call the Tesla service center and let them know about this place three miles from them that knew how to handle their car’s tires.

So where did that screw come from?  I went to four locations and only one of them had any construction around it.   My chiropractor’s office is virtually surrounded in construction and has been for several months so I have my suspicions.   Here’s the screw and the nice company who fixes punctured tires for free.

The Big Boy Update:  My son was working on his reading yesterday and complained bitterly, “I hate print.   I want to say to all the writers in the world who write books: please use cursive.”   Montessori schools teach cursive writing and it would seem he prefers it.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter asked Alexa to play, “Call Me Maybe” today.   I asked her where she’d heard that song as it was popular too far back and I don’t remember it playing when I’ve been around.   She didn’t recall she said, she did say, “I’m good at remembering things”.