THE TIRE.

Ya’ll remember The FLAT tire? The one that was FLAT Three Times?

Ya’ll remember The Donut? The one I had to drive with for over a week, after the THIRD Flat Tire.

* SURPRISE *

Yes, I had another FLAT TIRE.

Fouth Time.

Same Tire.

The TIRE itself is fine. But, from having so many flats, so many times, and driving on the STEEL RIM, while there is no rubber in-between the rim and the pavement = dented rim = constant flat tires.

I do not have enough time for my morning or evening commute to stop every single day to fill the tire with air. Why cant we just FIX THE RIM? So I will stop having FLAT TIRES.

Because apparently in New Jersey it is half past near impossible to get a STEEL RIM. The rims that are available are Aluminum. You can’t get a 2002 Hyundai Elantra steel rim, unless you go to the Hyundai Dealership.

(Which we did not learn, until today.)

My 86 year old grandfather POPPA SYE who we all love, who is always wanting / needing to help everyone (even if its disruptive, annoying, gets in everyone’s way, and ends up making matters worse) took on the monumental task of being the guy – in – charge of finding us the RIM we needed. He found a junkyard that had the rim we needed for $50.00.

Great!

9am this morning, the buzzer to my door blaring loud enough to wake me up, sprung me from my sofa. It was good-old daddy. Here to take me to fix the damn car today! YEAY!

I threw on sweats, tied my hair up in a baseball hat and put on my Manga’s mink fur coat, slid into my sneakers and flew down four flights of stairs to meet daddy.

First decision to make was, should we put the donut on? Or should we take our chances and drive to get air into the tire? It didn’t really matter anymore if we were going to be further denting and destroying the steel rim, because we were getting a NEW rim today.

Rather than go through the nightmare of using a wrench, a car jack, opening the trunk, digging out what we needed, taking off the tire, putting that in the trunk, putting on the donut, and Fuck! It’s Cold! Why stand outside like that for so long either?

Screw it, let’s just drive to the gas station closest to my house to put air in the tire. Then we would go to the junkyard to pick up the rim, then go to a garage and have them replace everything.

At least that WAS the plan.

The day started off BADLY when we arrived at our “favorite” gas station:

Wouldn’t you know it! The fucking air pump was broken, AGAIN. The same attendants that were there the last time this happened too.

All I can say, is Thank GOD! It was MY 75 cents! that went into the machine this time.

Because not only did the machine not work, that meant now, my daddy would have to go through the nightmare of using a wrench, a car jack, opening the trunk, digging out what we needed, taking off the tire, putting that in the trunk, putting on the donut, and Fuck! It’s Cold!

But wait…all the tools to put the donut on my car, were back at my fathers house. Nothing we needed to put the donut on was in the trunk of my car.

“God damn it!…Motherfucker!” said my father as he got back in my car.

“What do you want me to do daddy? Drive back home? What?” I said nervously giggling in-between questions because now he had the jaw clenching action happening.

“Well, there is another gas station at the next light where we’d need to go to make a U-TURN anyway, so…let’s see if they have an air pump…preferably one that works.” He said

“M-kay.” I said.

On the drive to the next light, my father said, “Why?do bad things always have to happen in threes? First I lost that insurance account, then, I lost at cards…I had a full house!! But the other guy had all four sevens!! And now this…I’m telling you right now Mel, you are so lucky that was your 75 cents.” (veins in my fathers neck about to explode)

“Don’t I know it!” I said (inner laughing to myself that occasionally leaked out)

As I drove on the shoulder of the highway and looked over at father, all I could do was laugh. Hard.

We both knew at that moment, had it been HIS 75 cents, I’m sure this post would have included pictures of my father being arrested by the police for destruction of property and/or murder.

Yes! What is that! An air pump? One that works? Get outta here! And, its only 50 cents! Oh hell yes, things are looking up.

Now that things were going in the right direction, my father was in a slightly better mood. At least a good enough mood to go get us some coffee. On his way back to my car, he even stopped to help some lost people by giving them directions (after all he is RON-QUEST)

* notice our coffee on the roof of a strangers vehicle in the pic below *

Back in my car, we were going off to the junkyard that Poppa Sye found, for the $50.00 rim. Thankfully, my father was wise to call ahead just to make sure the rim was there, ready for us to pick up.

“Hello, do you guys have a 2002 Hyundai Electra rim.”

“pssst…daddy, it’s an Elantra.”

“I’m sorry, do you guys have a 2002 Hyundai Electra, I mean ELANTRA Steel Rim? You don’t? What do you mean you don’t? My father-in-law called you guys, you guys said you do have that. You don’t care what my father-in-law told me? You haven’t had rims in 5 years? You only have tires? Oh, this is great, okay, fine, thanks… for nothing…bye.”

“Shit. Well, at least we didn’t drive all the way there, I would have been really pissed off.” My father turned and said to me after hanging up the phone.

“Oh, I know…so…where am I going now? What do we do now?” I asked.

“I guess, we have to go to Hyundai and see if they have the rim. I just know they aren’t going to have it. You know we are going to have to order it right? You know this is going to cost like $300.00 right?”

“Um hmm. I love you daddy.”

First thing my father does is find out IF they have what we need.

YES! They did.

Then my father needed to know, “How long is the wait going to be for the dealership to fix the tire?”

“An hour and a half.” Said totally innocent employee.

“No! No, that’s no good, I have things I have to do. I’ll just buy the rim and take it somewhere else.” Said my short tempered, at times, irrational, over-reactive, yet very lovable and quite entertaining daddy.

“Let me see what I can do.” Said totally innocent employee. Five minutes later, “It should only take a half hour sir. Can you wait that long?”

“Okay,” begrudgingly father.

While in the waiting area of the service department, watching the food network and reading skiing magazines, my father and I had a nice laugh at the strange couple that was next to us, who decided to sing along, out loud, out of key, to the bad 80’s songs in the commercials on TV.

45 minutes passed when my father noticed my car was still, just sitting there. In the parking lot. NOT being worked on. Not being worked on at all.

My father paced the waiting area once, and took off. I stayed in the waiting area. I knew what was about to go down.

INSERT DRAMATIC HORROR MOVIE MUSIC HERE!

(I do wish I had followed him and taken pictures of him freaking out on the dealership people, but I didn’t want my camera to get destroyed or be the recipient of one of my fathers’ tyrannical rages and/or speeches)

Damn an angry Ron picture would look soo good [here]

All I heard, 10 minutes later, from outside the window, “C’mon Mel, lets go!”

I ran out the door to meet my dad outside, when I noticed he had a box under his arms. It was the steel rim we needed.

I didn’t say anything, I just got into the passenger seat.

“They wasted 45 minutes of my time! What the fuck is with these people, oh, sure, they were going to start to work on it now! NOW?…Now! After 45 minutes already passed, I’d be sitting here for the hour and a half I didn’t agree to. These fucking bullshitters. Fuck them. I don’t even want them to fix it. No, we are going somewhere else now! ! !”

“Okay…daddy. Sure whatever you want. What did the rim cost anyway?”

“$190.00”

Then, in the heated state he was in, he decided that traffic laws don’t apply to him.

Maybe he thought he had to somehow get back the 45 minutes of his life that were wasted, he could just ignore all signs, or rules, and make illegal turns to get to a new place, a better place to fix the tire faster. Maybe he was in such a hurry to stick it to Hyundai by getting the tire fixed as fast as he could by another place even if it meant breaking laws. Maybe he really did have other shit to do? Like hanging curtains for my mom. You know how urgent that is to get to. Right?

Next place we went to:

We flew into and out of that parking lot. Three seconds.

“This place is packed. I will be stuck here for an hour and a half. No!”

“Okay daddy. I love you daddy…”

We flew down Route 9, with the fucked up tire, still! on! the! car! mind you.
Turning down side streets and whipping through Freehold, we ended up on MECHANIC STREET. That’s right…Mechanic Street. (we were driving too fast for me to get a picture of that)

Low, and behold… what is on Mechanic Street? A Michelin garage!

WITH NO PEOPLE…and with no WAITING TIME.

My father walked right in, right up to the front desk and explained the tragedy of his day. How terrible Hyundai is, how they are a bunch of liars and scumbags. How he had so much to do, and it had been three hours since we started out this morning. He couldn’t take it anymore, help him now? Or he will come back on Monday.

Luckily, happily, the people were more than willing to solve the life-death-severity of urgent rim-changing-ness. And they would do it, for $20.00.

THIS IS A PIX OF THE BOX WITH THE NEW STEEL RIM INSIDE (FROM HYUNDAI)

THIS IS THE PIX OF MY “SERVICE CALL NUMBER” THE SIGN FROM HYUNDAI, BECAUSE WE LEFT IN SUCH A HURRY, (ITS STILL ON MY CAR)

While we waited all of 9 minutes for the tire/rim to be fixed, my father sat back, to read this magazine:

My dad considered, just for a second, it might not be a bad idea for him to change his whole life? Maybe? even become a member of the Jihadists movement? Then, he could be wielding a machine gun. Much like the child on the cover of the magazine. And NONE of this would have ever been so hard today, had he been equipped with ammunition.

After it was all said and done and paid for, on the way home, after turning down a side street, filled with mothers and tribes of children and strollers, my father looked at me and said

“GREAT! Now we are stuck in a PARADE!”

We both laughed so hard, I cried. We were so hysterical. It was the best laugh my father laughed all day!

I’m home, I have a new rim, I have a fine working vehicle, and it didn’t cost $300.00.

It cost $200.00.

My only REGRET of the day is not asking the Michelin people to please give me the old bent/dented/damaged rim. I would like to have saved that. And post a picture of it right here.