Flat Tire

It was a nice summer day, the beginning of July and everything was going right. I drove over to my best friend’s house to get my pals so we could go swimming at her grandmother’s house. I was like mid morning, not quite hot yet so we stayed at her place for a while, hanging out and catching up cause it had been about a week since we had seen each other. Once we got on our bathing suits and felt like it was a good temp to leave we did. Windows down, country music blasting, everything was good in the world. We got to her grandmother’s road in like ten minutes, having to slow down because it was a dirt road and my tires were not the newest. It switched back to pavement after like a mile of driving slow, and we were back on our way. We pulled into her driveway just in time to be handed some ice cold popsicles, life was good. We put down our things, took off our clothes and laid down in the lawn chairs. We stayed there for about an hour until her gram called us inside to see what we wanted to eat for lunch. We chose mac n cheese, a fan fave obviously. It took about a half hour make because she made like four boxes but man was it worth the wait, shortly after eating we left because a friend invited us to her camp to go tubing. We got on the road again and were on our way. Leaving her driveway we were on a paved road headed towards the dirt patch but I forgot about it and no one reminded me. I was going the speed limit but was not thinking that the road was going to switch to dirt, on a corner, full of rocks. All of a sudden, we saw the dirt and I did not have time to slow down. There was a pointy rock and my tire hit it just right. Yup, it popped, I lost control of my car and we were going in circles. Me being a born race car driver tried to keep the car in control, and I did, eventually. We pulled over and we were all too shaken up to move for a second but we needed to. We got out of my car realized I could not drive anymore because there was no saving that tire. I knew that there was a donut in the back because I cleaned my car once and saw it. I also saw tools and stuff which are for changing a tires, I just had no idea what to do. I called my dad and asked him what to do and he kind of gave me the rundown, I acted like I understood but literally had no idea. We were all in our bathing suits a bunch of girls who had no idea what to do in a situation like this, nowhere to go and in the middle of nowhere. All of a sudden we heard this noise, a loud dump truck came rolling down. This creepy guy came out and offered to help, he might have been creepy but he was a friend in that moment, and helped us not having a clue who we were. The man changed the tire and we got out of there the quickest we could, but safely of course. Our windows were down and we got to the end of the road laughing about what just happened. All of a sudden it sounded like the same tire was flat again, we all sighed and I pulled over. Yes of course, the spare was flat. At this point we were out of luck and had absolutely no idea what to do. My friend called her dad and about twenty minutes later he showed up. He filled up the tire and told us to drive really slow until I got to Greene to get my new tire. Mind you, we were in Monmouth, and had to make it all the way to Greene. After an hour of driving twenty under the speed limit we got there, to my dads work and they fixed my car. My dad was not there so we all felt uncomfortable being in our bathing suits around a bunch of grown men. But, they were nice, and good friends because they let me leave without paying, thank god, cause I’m poor and had no cash on me. We finally left and made it back on our way to Litchfield, to our friends to go tubing. After hours of tubing, being thrashed around the water, and getting a huge headache, we were done. I looked at my friend and saw that she only had one earring. I told her hoping she would not get upset but she was. They were real pearl and expensive, she cried but could not do anything about it really. I told her it was going to be okay, trying to be a good friend when my girl was upset, and I don’t blame her. It was a long day, and I was ready to go home, I dropped them off and went to see my boyfriend. Finally able to relax. That day was long, full of laughs and maybe some tears but the friendly acts of kindness that I saw in people were great and eye opening. The man in the dump truck was working, stopped what he was doing to help me for no reason, The man that my dad works for ordered me a tire, put it on and let me go without paying just because he wanted to be a nice guy. Those two people did not have to be so nice or helpful, they did not have to but they did and that is the story of how friends helped me and how I helped a friend.

Photo by Mr. Kaya on Foter.com / CC BY