Swerve This Dumb Dog!

The car gods are against us. First Jenny has a close encounter of the dog kind a couple of days ago, just narrowly avoiding death and mayhem (including all involved: Jenny, Andrew, and the dog). We were all relieved that they were ok (dog excluded). Big O tires is grateful that we are addicted to spending money at their business.

Lesson taught by everyone: hit the dog after yelling "Dumb Dog!". In practice more easily said than done. I don't think that there is a raging dog killer instinct within us all. Most of us, I think, sadly fall in the category of 'Monday morning dog vehicle homicide road rage quarterbacking.' Instinct generally kicks in and we usually kill ourselves before we stop and think, "what is the right thing to do?" Though, I have heard that violent video games can cure you of this bad habit.

Alas, I digress. Back to the punitive car gods. Yesterday, while minding my own business while driving down the interstate, a large piece of metal decided to jump out of a truck ahead of me. Before I could yell, "Dumb piece of metal!" (my memory might be a little foggy, but I don't think those are the actual words I said), I tried to swerve within the confines of crowded traffic. The metal chased me down like a lion on a wildebeest on the Serengeti. It snagged my back tire shredding my tire to pieces and bent my rim.

Life's lessons are a cruel irony. Jenny swerves, misses dog, and seriously damages car #1. Rex is unable to swerve enough, hits metal, and seriously damages car #2. What's the lesson to be learned...Who the heck knows?

Well, I get the car off the road and work feverishly to get the spare on before some crazed inattentive driver tags me. Just as I was finishing up, a highway patrolman pulls up. This is how our conversation went:

Patrolman: I saw a piece of metal in the road
Me: Yup. me too. too late.
Patrolman: I threw it off the road
Me: Thanks
Patrolman: You good?
Me: Yup (only stating the obvious)

We both went on our own merry ways. I get to Big O and walk in to hear a cheery, "Hi, Rex". We're on a first name basis. "You just missed your wife," who had only picked up the other car minutes ago. He took one look at the tire and said, "I don't think we can salvage that." "What?, but the valve stem is in such good shape". There literally was not much left to the tire. Was this 'state the obvious day', and someone had forgotten to send me the memo?

Well, they replaced the tire, pounded out the rim, and sent me on my way. As I was finishing up the paperwork for the loan to pay for everything, the Bid O guy said, "Don't worry about rotating your tires." What? Did these new types of tire not need rotating? "No," he said, "You destroy them before you ever hit the mileage before they need it."

I wanted to say, "Dumb Big O Guy!"

I'm thinking of self imposing a three day waiting period on driving all our cars after any time we have any car 'incidents' in the future. At least that way we can more easily identify each separate 'incident' on the credit card billing.