As soon as we went over the railroad tracks, I heard it.
I was coming home from my sister’s house with Tyler (Parker hadn’t been feeling well so he stayed home with his mother) on Sunday night. It’s getting dark in NJ pretty early now and I remember hearing that morning we were headed below freezing for the first time this year. So I closed all the indoor shutoff valves to outside hose lines and opened the outside valves to let the remaining water drain out. On Sunday, the guys who installed the sprinklers had come with their giant compressor to blow out the lines. All was set.
After I heard the noise, I pretended not to hear the rumbling sound coming from what I thought was the front right tire area of the car. “If I refuse to hear anything, maybe it will go away,” I wished. But the noise got louder.
“Tyler, give me my phone back,” I said imploringly, wanting to silence his most-recent YouTube selection so I could actually hear what was going on.
I pulled over and got out of the car for an inspection. Since I feared a collapsed suspension on my 2001 Honda CRV (I had recently put some serious repair money into it), I was relieved to just see a flat tire.
I thought through my situation. I could keep Tyler warm because the car was still running, so that wasn’t an issue, but I figured I’d better brief the wife first thing anyway. Her first reaction was, of course, to rescue her child from the cold and dark. Not me, her child.
With the lovely lady in route, I walked to the back of the car to start the process of getting back on the road and back home. I knew I had a can of Fix-A-Flat somewhere back there, but it was going to be hard to find. With an SUV like mine, there is a type of flooring in the back under which people customarily keep their tire changing equipment. Unfortunately, what goes on top of the flooring is anything and everything — often a lot of it and sometimes fairly heavy stuff (think cases of water, etc). To make a long story short, when contemplating changing a tire in the cold and dark you quickly realize such a setup is not very “user friendly.”
After much struggling and digging in the dark (I could have used a flashlight to find my flashlight), I found the can of Fix-A-Flat. It must have been one of the first off the line when they invented the stuff because it looked quite old and decrepit. Unfortunately, its performance matched its appearance. After I screwed the can onto the valve stem and pressed down, instead of going into the tire, the white foam bubbled onto my hand, coating it with whatever lovely chemicals make up that bizarre mixture. Ok, time for Plan B.
By that time, my wife had arrived. After realizing that I had also put a can of Fix-A-Flat in her car back when we were, as she jokes, “fresh and new,” I connected it to the tire and pressed. Unfortunately, the results were no better. The button collapsed into the can lavishing my hand with a fresh coating of foam. Lovely.
Ok, I reasoned, it’s tire-changing time. But as I looked over the situation, I thought, “I can’t do this tonight.” Why? Because, first off, my bike rack was on top of my spare tire, and my bike was on my bike rack. All that would have to come off. Then, I’d have to take everything out of my trunk so I could fish down into that dark pit to find the jack and associated rods and bars. But the biggest problem was that it was very dark outside. I could do this in the light, but in the dark, it would be really tough. And, I thought, what if I take everything out of the trunk, take the bike off, and still find I’m missing something? Forget it, I’ll come back tomorrow. And so I talked to the manager of the store into whose parking lot I had pulled and asked if I could leave it there overnight. I’d be back first thing in the AM, I promised. “No problem,” he said.
And so I was, after checking what time sunrise would be. I easily found the equipment and changed the tire, after which I ordered two new cans of Fix-A-Flat for our cars. And so now, I’ve got a new approach to being ready for this particular brand of crisis.
In an easily accessible duffle bag, I will keep the following items:
- Jack and the associated bars for raising jack and removing tire nuts
- Headlamp (attaches to head like headband, gives light while keeping both hands free)
- Flashlight
- Extra batteries
- Small can of WD-40 for loosening tire nuts
- Gloves (warm but not too thick as to make the hands useless)
- Working can of Fix-A-Flat
Of course, you’ll also need a working spare, phone (have a car charger) and an active AAA membership, with the membership number handy.
It’s unfortunate when you have to struggle through a crisis to learn you were ill-prepared for it. The reason for this is, just as militaries often prepare to fight the last war, so we prepare to handle the last crisis. For hospitals in NJ, that would likely be the disaster that was Hurricane Sandy. To be sure, it was one of epic proportions, but it was a particular variety of disaster — one in which you get a big punch, but have ample warning it’s coming. There are certainly other crises against whose impact a Sandy-style response would be less than effective.
So what’s the best way to move forward? To not only prepare for the last disaster but do some scenario planning for other troubling events. Think worst-case scenarios and you’ll be ready for most that come your way. If I had planned to change a tire in winter darkness, I would surely be ready to do it on a spring morning, but not vice versa. As someone who usually has small kids in the car, I should have been better prepared. With lots of patients in your beds, you might want to give disaster recovery some extra consideration too.
Share Your Thoughts
You must be logged in to post a comment.