If you’ve read any of these columns before, you may feel bad for my wife on account of me.
This week I got a flat tire, which instantly made me think of the last time I had a flat tire. I was working in Halifax and had flown there while my wife packed and drove the car across country.
When she packs something, however, she packs it obsessively tight.
So much so, that she’d broken the screen on a laptop trying to wedge it in somewhere.
We knew we were only going to be living in Halifax for a few months before moving to Ottawa. Consequently, we decided that we’d only take the essentials out and would leave the rest.
When we started making our way over to Ottawa, we got a flat tire in Gatineau, Quebec.
The spare tire was on the back but the car jack was stored in the bottom compartment under all the stuff.
Not being very keen on unpacking on the side of the highway in Quebec, we called CAA of which I was a member.
They showed up and promptly told us their jack was broken, resulting in having to call another tow truck.
When they showed up, they jacked the car, replaced it with the spare and it was immediately obvious what the problem was; she had packed the car so tight and heavy that the fender had been ever so slightly riding on the inner corner of the wheel.
As a result, over a summer of driving, the fender had worn through the rubber, thread; all of the tire threat and body.
We immediately went to a garage after getting the spare put on, not least of all because the other rear tire was equally paper thin on the inner corner.
The first garage we went to straight up refused to lift it (which seemed a bit excessive) because they were worried their lift would break.
A second garage fixed it without further incident.
Clearly, my wife’s idiosyncrasies put me in as much if not greater peril than my largely harmless mistakes.
As for my flat tire this week, I have no idea what caused it but managed to switch to the spare without incident.
I’m not sure why, but all praise for managing to do so quickly went to one of my colleagues who gave me a hand.
Apparently, the rest of the office has no faith in my handyman capabilities.