Paul Harvey

And now, the rest of the story of last Saturday.

Greg's alarm went off at 4:45 a.m. I tried (unsuccessfully) to go back to sleep until he left the house at 5:15. He kissed the girls before he left, so at 5:20, Allie called me to her room, sobbing because she was sad that Daddy left.

At 5:25, after I got her calmed down, Greg called to say he was on the highway with a flat tire and needed us to come with the other car. I woke up Julia from a sound sleep, told Allie to put on some pants, and started downstairs, only to realize that I'd forgotten to put pants on.

After a brief delay, we got on our winter coats and buckled up and drove out to where Greg was stuck. Greg and I scooped up the girls and put them in their carseats in the other car (at least his car was warm) and Greg had to leave to catch his flight. He was scheduled to leave at 6:50 and it was already 5:45 (and he had a good 20 minutes more to drive to the airport).

The three of us girls sat on the side of the state highway until 6:05 or so, talking about why we were awake and what was going to happen when the tow truck driver Daddy had called showed up. It's still dark at that time on cloudy mornings and Greg doesn't have a flashlight in his car. I asked the tow truck driver if he could just put on our spare tire (or as the girls took to calling it, the baby tire), rather than tow us. Thank goodness, in a five-year-old car, it wasn't flat too.

Another 15 minutes and $52.50 later, we drove home. Naturally, at this point, having the girls go back to sleep, as I would gladly have done, was out of the question. So we stayed awake and mid-morning, I started trying to find a place to get four new tires put on (we should have replaced these tires months ago).

Two places said they were first come, first served for appointments and one said they were already backed up four hours. Then I called Tires Plus and asked if they made appointments and the guy said, sure, come in at noon. I confirmed that putting on the tires would take about an hour. Perfect!

We drove up to Madison, a trip of about 20-25 minutes normally, most of which is on a two-lane highway. The tow truck driver had warned me not to drive on the compact spare tire at any faster than 50 miles per hour, so we drove just a little under 50. Considering weekends are supposed to be relaxing for most people, there are a lot of really pissed off people on the roads on Saturday mornings. I kept looking in the rear view mirror to see how many cars were lined up behind me. When a bunch finally passed, I even got honked at and motioned to. Loads of fun.

So we showed up at noon at Tires Plus and registered. Then we walked a block and a half to a restaurant for lunch (in the cold wind). Then we walked back and Julia fell and skinned her knee. Then she wouldn't walk anymore. Did I mention that she weighs 30 lbs. now and she feels like more in a winter coat, hat, and shoes that light up?

We got back to Tires Plus and our car was back in the same stall in the parking lot. Correction, it was in the same stall in the parking lot, and hadn't been moved, because the baby tire was still on the front wheel.

I asked at the desk if they were going to start on our car anytime soon and the desk person said, I don't know what you were told but our computer shows we expect to finish your car about 2:15. It was about 1:10. I said, are you going to bring it into a service bay anytime soon. He said, yours will be the next car serviced, as soon as a bay becomes available.

I said, are you close to being finished on any of the cars currently in the bays. He said, we'll get to it as soon as possible (in other words, no). I said, we're leaving. He apologized. I said, we're leaving. He had to take the charge off my credit card and we were on our way.

I was not going to drive home with that tire. I was not going to try to go somewhere else. Julia and Allie were both wiped out at this point from waking so early and it's not fun to sit in a stinky (rubber scented) dirty tire shop for hours with a football game on the TV and try to entertain two crabby, tired girls.

We drove to the airport, which was conveniently only about two miles away. When we got there, I realized that though I'd spoken to Greg during his layover, I hadn't asked where he'd parked my car. There's a pretty good sized ramp at this airport, plus long-term surface parking.

Assuming that Greg would go for the more expensive ramp parking because his company is paying for it, we headed in there. I immediately realized that we were going to be very lucky to find our car quickly. And our luck finally changed. We found it in just a couple of minutes and a couple of levels (nice spot, honey!).

I pulled the car out, parked the other car in the same spot, transferred the girls, transferred his intake ticket for the ramp, wrote a quick welcome home note, and we left.

And we managed to do it within 15 minutes, so there was no charge for being in the long-term parking ramp (shades of Fargo, averted).

Greg will be home on Thursday and he'll have to drive my car to work on Friday while I take one more trip to my work with the compact spare. Then Saturday, when we have two cars and can leave one and GO AWAY, SO WHO CARES HOW LONG IT TAKES YOU TO FIX IT, we'll get it fixed.

I am quite convinced we should have done this ages ago. Consider me reformed when it comes to tire maintenance.

The day ended well. The girls both took naps in the afternoon, Julia a long one and Allie a short one. We went to a McDonald's playland in the evening and they both had a blast. And at the end of the day, I have a car with four good tires (at least at the moment).

How was your weekend?