Afternoon Jaunt
Last wednesday, I took a half-day vacation to drive to the Lowe's in Benton Harbor. Why would I drive 3 hours to go to a store that has a location 3.1 miles from my house? Well, I found a use for all those fu-fu stlye people, who insist on rotating shades of product, if for no other reason than to preserve their overpriced job of coming up with 27 different ways of saying "beige". Since it's a moral imperative that they stop selling 'American Beech' Pergo flooring, and immediately replace it with 'Durant Beech', the shit was cheap. As in driving the 6 hours saved me $1000 cheap.
On the road, my Spidey-sense kicked in. I've had that car almost 8 months now, and was never worried about anything going wrong. Maybe it's because it was the farthest I've ever been from home in that car, but I started getting the feeling something was about to go.
After loading up the wagon with 23 boxes of flooring, I thought to check the tires. The front right had the radial poking through the tread, which isn't generally something you want on your vehicle. So, off to Discount Tire I go.
The bright side of having a car with 13" wheels is tires can be had for cheap, I priced out a set at $130 at Discount Tire. They didn't have those. They had the $230 set. But, I think the guy was sweet on me, because he was the chattiest tire guy I've ever encountered in my over-two-dozen tires purchased at that store, and he kept apologizing for not having the cheap tires, and taking more off my bill. For $40, I didn't not flirt back.
I wandered off to get some Taco Bell, and when I got back, I found out they didn't have the tires I bought in stock either. So my new friend got me the next ones up, which were in the next size up. Contrary to intuition, having your car loaded down is the perfect time to get double-plus-sized tires.
In all fairness, the tires needed replacing when I got the car, 10,000 miles ago. Of course, at that point the front right CV joint wobbled in your hand so, having tempted fate enough, I'm parking it until I get that CV joint fixed.
On the road, my Spidey-sense kicked in. I've had that car almost 8 months now, and was never worried about anything going wrong. Maybe it's because it was the farthest I've ever been from home in that car, but I started getting the feeling something was about to go.
After loading up the wagon with 23 boxes of flooring, I thought to check the tires. The front right had the radial poking through the tread, which isn't generally something you want on your vehicle. So, off to Discount Tire I go.
The bright side of having a car with 13" wheels is tires can be had for cheap, I priced out a set at $130 at Discount Tire. They didn't have those. They had the $230 set. But, I think the guy was sweet on me, because he was the chattiest tire guy I've ever encountered in my over-two-dozen tires purchased at that store, and he kept apologizing for not having the cheap tires, and taking more off my bill. For $40, I didn't not flirt back.
I wandered off to get some Taco Bell, and when I got back, I found out they didn't have the tires I bought in stock either. So my new friend got me the next ones up, which were in the next size up. Contrary to intuition, having your car loaded down is the perfect time to get double-plus-sized tires.
In all fairness, the tires needed replacing when I got the car, 10,000 miles ago. Of course, at that point the front right CV joint wobbled in your hand so, having tempted fate enough, I'm parking it until I get that CV joint fixed.