My Tire, A Nail and A Cosmic Joke

I'm driving to Idaho from Carson City to visit my sister. I'm about 7 hours in and doing well. I'm so close I feel my energy come back up and suddenly the drive doesn't seem that long. Ok only a few more hours and i'm there. yay.

I feel my car go loose. literally loose. the steering wheel felt like it was on a swivel screw. "well this isn't good" is the only thought I had in my head before all heck broke loose. My tire blows out, my cars swerves right. In some insane part of my brain that is still functioning, I think of my snow driving training. let go of the wheel, stay off the break and slightly ease off the gas. It straitens out for a second, knowing I have to get off the rode. I try to steer it to the side....it doest like that. I swerve to the left, make a hard right and then all of the sudden I'm facing backwards and cars a coming at me. I have a half a second to say 'no' out load when I do a complete 360...I'll never think of the tilt a whirl at the carnival the same way again.

Now this happens in a matter of seconds and three distinct things are happening with me. One, while trying desperately to get the car to cooperate, I'm saying out load 'please don't flip, please don't flip'...Two, in my head I'm desperately trying to recall how tight Juliets seat belt is...what if we do flip, will she stay in?...and Three I am begging God over and over to please not take me today.

Who knew you could have three distinct things going at the same time...I didn't.

I come to a bone jarring stop in the gravel. My head is pounding, my hands are shaking and my vision blurs. I hear a soft voice almost scolding voice from the back of the car...."Momma" it says "you broke the car"..."Yes, baby I did" I reply. I take two deep breaths before I get out of the car and grab Juliet out.

A couple stops and slows traffic down for me, a man in a white shirt, tie and really nice shoes (ge looks like a Bishop...it is a comfort beyond believe), he takes my keys and moves me the rest of the way out of the road and a trucker stops and comes over to help.

by the time I remember I have road side assistance on my borrowed phone, they have the tire almost changed into the donut. I feel like a silly female, when they ask me if I have a spare or where any of the things are I look at them wide-eyed and repeat 'um I don't know' over and over again. When in fact I do know, my father taught us. But I'm to shaken to care and desperately thankful that they came to my rescue.

The trucker takes the shredded tire off the thankfully not bent rim and we see the problem. A six inch nail is stuck traight in. Like it was hammered in. I must have picked it up somewhere and it deflated my tire enough to allow the rubber to heat up to much while driving 75-80 on the free way (yes that is the posted speed limit!).

The state trooper pulls up just as the donut is going on the car. He asks if there are any injuries, how many cars are involved...you know the usual. He also asks for my drivers license and when I hand it to him, I notice how incredibly handsome this trooper is. Which I admit helps the situation a tad. ;) He checks out the information, talks to the men folk for a bit, bids them good-bye. I thank them over and over again and watch them walk off to their vehicles.

The trooper tells me he wishes he had stickers or something for my daughter. I tell him at this point I'm the one that needs the stickers. Juliet is seems not even effected by it. Which could be good as in I'm doing a good job at keeping calm and so she doesn't think it a big deal or a bad thing as in she's used to this kind of thing happening....cause lets face it, you can't take me anywhere!

I tell the trooper good bye. Let him know I will be stopping in the next town to get a new tire and off I go.

I drive into Burley Id. My sister tells me there are 8 tire places, I find the first one and go for it. Cause it is already 5:30 and things shut down early here. I pull into the wal-mart tire center. They have one person working today and three cars a head of me. He tells me it will be at least a 45 minute wait and the only tire he has in stock for my car is $120.00. 'Ok' I say. I don't have time to price shop and risk places being shut before I get there.

We wait, I make phone calls, update my face book status from my phone and finally my car is ready to go. I hand over the money and off we go.

I get back on the freeway and start heading towards Rexburg. And here comes a bill board...on the bill board is an advertisement for les shwab...what are they advertising? Why they are letting the world know they have a huge sale on tires! I smile and laugh to myself. Leave it to Heavenly Father to play a cosmic joke on me. He knows that's the kind of thing that will take my mind off of it and get me back into life.

I am deeply grateful that we didn't flip, that a trucker and a well dressed man helped me. That my tired blew late enough to be close to a town, but early enough to miss heavy traffic and to find an open mechanic. And for Heavenly Father who felt it necessary to spare any pain by keeping me and my precious cargo safe for at least one more day.