When the Air Went Out

I was driving home yesterday evening when my left front tire suddenly went flat. Fortunately, I was just starting up from a stop sign so my speed was negligible. I pulled over into the next side street and up onto the verge, although the left front of the car where I was going to have to work was still partially on the street. My "spare" was a donut and the jack that comes with the car is obnoxiously inefficient but I got down to the task.

This is one of the ways you can tell you're in the South:

In the fifteen minutes it took me to change the tire, four people (out of maybe eight passing vehicles) pulled over to ask if they could help. One actually passed me and backed up. One was a woman in an SUV who's idea of help, I suspect, would have been to call AAA or a towing company since she was not dressed to get on her knees in the street with me, but her heart was in the right place, bless her. The last one was the owner of the property in front of which I was parked who had just come home from work and, although I was nearly done, insisted on handing the nuts to me while I was screwing them back on and putting the hubcap back in the trunk with the flat for me.

Today I replaced both front tires. I'll probably have to do the rear ones after the first of the year. But, at least I know I won't be alone.

Sign of the Times: Co-Pilot Division

I was out driving around today and saw one of those license plate frames people buy to personalize their vehicles without having to pay for vanity plates. Usually, they're in support of some sports team or they're extolling the virtues of the owner's children or grandchildren or "My Other Car Is a ______." This one said,

This Car Is Protect by

Angels

Uh . . ., no.

Your car, dear lady, is protected by DOT safety regulations, Korean design specifications, the manufacturing expertise of hundreds of component suppliers and the ability of other drivers, such as myself, to skillfully avoid ramming your superstitious ass.

Especially, since your own "skills" include stopping more than a car length short of the intersection, exceeding the speed limit by at least 10 mph and turning without signalling.

Redneck Studies: A Close Call, Parts & Labor Included

Neighbor Dan came over Saturday evening shortly after my brother had left for work. I thought he might be coming to visit the kittens as he and his youngest daughter had done the day before but he was stopping to let me know he had my brother on his phone. My phone was charging at the time. It's a problem with not having a land line anymore.

It seems my brother had been driving on our town's main commercial drag, a six lane (not counting turn-offs) "boulevard" of chain restaurants, strip malls and big box stores when the front end of his truck just fell off about four blocks from work. He needed cash for the tow truck. I grabbed $100 from my brother's stash and headed out.

When I found him, he had managed to pull over into a turn-out lane and was out of the main flow of traffic although that did not stop several inattentive idiots, despite his hazard lights flashing, from pulling in behind his truck as they attempted to enter the mall.

He hadn't been kidding about his truck. It looked as if the left front axle had broken or at least separated from the differential. The end of the axle and the ball joint were just lying there on the road. The wheel was turned in and down at a 45 degree angle and the entire front of the truck sagged. It was a good thing he was in town where the speed limit is 45 mph and traffic volume often prevents even that. If he'd been on the highway when that happened the truck would have gone head over heels and he'd be dead now.

And here's where we get to the Redneck Studies. The thing is, that's exactly the part of the truck he'd had repaired only about 1000 miles ago.

Your typical redneck will opt for the independent contractor, good ol' boy almost every time. The main exception is retail where Wally World wins out over mom-'n'-pop. It all comes down to price, quality be damned. My brother had taken his truck to two guys who used to work for an established (but still local and otherwise good ol' boy himself) mechanic. (They claimed they left voluntarily because they objected to certain of his business practices which is just the unverifiably generic excuse I would expect from a couple of guys who were probably let go for being slackers, but I'm cynical that way.) Be that as it may, they quoted my brother a really good price for the work and he let them at it.

You get what you pay for is a maxim that does not register with rednecks.

I offered to stay with my brother but he declined as there was nothing, really, for me to do there and I'd left my dinner on the stove so I went home before the cats could get to it. My brother had the truck towed to the guys who messed it up, left it parked blocking their garage bay and walked home. I gave him my car to go back to work. So now we're down to one car until the truck is fixed or he can convince his insurance to pay for a rental and since he drives for a living that may not be automatic.

Where Cliches Come From

Somebody is so going to have his keys taken away.

I stopped in at the supermarket on my way home yesterday to pick up some carrots to make cole slaw with the leftover cabbages from our St. Patrick's Day dinner for which my brother had bought two heads, one green and one purple, which is way more than we needed for corned beef and cabbage for just the two of us. We, in fact, used a half head of each for the dinner and the other two halves have been in the refrigerator ever since, but won't keep too much longer.

I was only in the store for a few minutes but came out to find the fire department just arriving. There had been an accident in the parking lot and they pulled their huge pumper up to it blocking an entire aisle (fortunately not the one my car was in. I was one aisle over and three cars down from the scene). They may have been in the neighborhood because they arrived awfully fast and without any fanfare.

As the firemen/EMTs checked on the older driver who was still in his car, one of the people standing around (a woman whose SUV was now blocked in by the fire truck and who was settling in for a wait) told me the accident happened when the 87-year-old gentleman tried to back out of his parking space, mistakenly floored the accelerator and plowed in reverse into a sedan on the opposite side of the aisle, turning it and pushing it into the next car over. That third car also slid sideways but missed the fourth car by less than an inch (I looked).

Old person. Parking lot. Wrong pedal. Multi-vehicle accident. Check, check, check and check. Florida. Check.

A police car pulled into the parking lot as I pulled out, also with no fuss or other display of urgency, but as I approached the intersection an ambulance came blasting through with sirens and horns blaring and lights flashing. Either the firefolks had determined the old gent was having issues or the ambulance crew realized they were late to the party. Hope it was the latter.

Stereotypes, Florida Automotive Division

Today, on a major boulevard in town: a delivery truck for a local electronics retailer cruising down the middle lane with his left turn blinker on. Yesterday, on a slightly smaller street (only two lanes in each direction) a motorcycle in the far right hand lane, ridden by an elderly gentleman, cars fearful of passing him because he, also, had his left turn signal blinking merrily away for over a mile.

Coming out of the library, a little old emphysematic lady (she doesn't use oxygen but you can hear her wheezing a good ten feet away) wisely stopped at the edge of the curb and waited while an SUV pulling out from the book drop-off ran the stop sign. She then tottered through the parking lot to her own car where she literally disappeared (her hands on the steering wheel were more visible through the windshield than her head). The car eased off down the road a good fifteen miles and hour under the speed limit.

The decade-old, mufflerless pick up truck with the rebel flag decals on the rear window that took off from the intersection as if the green flag had dropped at Daytona all screeching tires and clouds of exhaust fumes only to stall out half a block down the road blocking the lane.

And not least, by far: the Mercedes SUV with the "Tell Barack I'm Baroke" bumper sticker.

I don't think so.

First One To Christmas Wins

How to tell the pressures of the Holiday Season are upon us:

Starting the day after Thanksgiving (maybe even Thanksgiving day, I don't know, I refuse to go out then) traffic on the roads not only spikes but speed increases and aggression rises as well.

I've been out and about, to the library mostly and a little shopping, almost every day since the feast and it was very noticeable how many more people were on the road during non-rush-hours. Side roads and residential streets aren't that bad but the main routes are packed with people going at least ten miles an hour faster than usual.

And red light runners. Drivers here in Florida know to wait when the light turns green until they can see the oncoming vehicles slowing or stopped before entering an intersection. I usually see maybe one person every other month trying to sneak through an intersection against the light. I've seen three so far since Thanksgiving.

The best was Saturday. I was approaching a huge crossroad, three lanes in each direction on both roads plus extra dedicated turn lanes both left and right for a total of 22 controlled lanes plus three additional uncontrolled right turn lanes. The signals in my left turn lanes turned yellow and a pick-up truck ahead of me in the rightmost left turn lane sped up although it was obvious he would barely make it into the intersection, with no chance of being through it, before the light turned red. At the last he second the driver suddenly realized the car in front of him had no intention of running the light. He hit his brakes hard, swerved rightward part way into the adjacent leftmost through lane, came to a dead stop inches from the rear of the car in front, pulled hard to the right and gunned it straight through the intersection which was legal because the through signals are on a different timer and were just turning yellow. I half expected to see him pull a U-turn and try a right hand turn coming from the other direction but he kept going.

(Zoom in on the Arrow for the intersection in question)

Catalog shopping is looking more and more appealing. We just received Pendery, full of bulk spices and herbs and sauces and cookbooks and other good things. I think my afternoon is set.

The Shortcut

My brother went across the river yesterday to buy a couple of tires, one for himself and one for me. He picked some little hole-in-the-wall shop no bigger than a two car garage that specializes in cheap tires. He came home empty-handed.

Just as he pulled into the alley where the shop is located he heard a loud explosion. It seems a full size semi-tractor trailer rig had, instead of simply going straight out to the street, tried to take the diagonal through the back lot of the tire shop where the low hanging power lines slid up and over the wind spoiler on top of the cab and dropped down between the cab and the trailer catching there and pulling down the power pole, snapping it into six pieces and blowing up both of the transformers attached to it. When people went to investigate, they found the idiot driver out of the cab and trying unsuccessfully to push, by hand, the wires back over the top of the trailer, presumably so he could continue on his way.

With power out in the neighborhood, my brother came home mission unaccomplished.

He went back this morning after calling to confirm that electricity had been restored. The owner was so grateful/desperate for business he called back to ask what sizes we were looking for so he could have them ready and waiting when my brother arrived.

Miscellanea

Why, when entering a limited access road, do people stop on the entrance ramp and, instead of using the acceleration/merge lane, wait for traffic to clear and then enter by immediately cutting across three lanes to start speeding up in the express lane? I have not seen this behavior anywhere else although it is being done here by drivers with a number of different out-of-state plates.

What I first took to be an obvious and badly placed speed trap turned out to be two city police cars, a city police pick-up truck and the city police dive squad panel truck all parked at the end of a canal. Not a good sign.