Tired of Tires

I’ve been a driver for nearly 18 years and probably driven over 200,000 miles during that time. I mentioned briefly last Monday that I got a flat tire, but I didn’t include the fact that this was the first flat tire in the 18 years of driving. Well, while heading back to Pittsburgh on Friday, I had my second flat tire in less than a week. Last week’s incident occurred on I-66 when the rear driver’s side tire blew out. On Friday, I noticed that my alignment seemed a little off when I was on 270, but I didn’t piece everything together until I merged onto I-70 and heard and felt another flat tire. In this case, the rear passenger’s side tire had some sort of valve leak. So now I have two new tires and two new valves on the front tires. However, I still sort of freaked out when I drove to and from Washington this weekend. I worried a little after hitting any bump on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

As a bit of a tangent, I’m quick to criticize or write negative posts against companies that do a poor job. I don’t always give props to companies that go above and beyond my expectations. So today, I want to give credit to AAA auto services. They were amazing during both flat tire incidents. AAA arrived quickly and was extremely thorough and professional. Kudos to AAA!

Since I’m in a generous mood, I’d also like to give kudos to The Washington Post. I unsubscribed from receiving the Sunday edition because they were unreliable in delivering the paper. They ignored vacation stops and wouldn’t deliver the paper until after 9:30 on Sunday mornings. Well, I subscribed again a month or two ago, and something changed within the organization. I had a 6:00am flight to Bradenton, Florida when I went to Pirates’ Spring Training last month, and the newspaper arrived on my doorstep at 4:30 just before I left. They have been great since I subscribed again.

OK, tangents over. Not to make this too much of a sappy post, I was subjected to watching Miley Cyrus and company promote the new Hannah Montana movie on the Tyra Banks show while waiting for my tire to be repaired. While I do not condone torture, airing the hour-long Miley Cyrus-Tyra Banks episode on a continuous loop would cause any terrorist or criminal to confess!