Winter Damage, Part 2

Nicole had soccer practice last night. In Holliston. Which is an hour’s drive away from us down 495, a highway that scares me. (The insanity of the fact that she has practice an hour away might be the topic of a future post.)

I got the phone call at 7:30. She had hit a pothole and had a flat tire.

After her initial, panicky “What do I do?”, we both managed to stay calm and used GPS technology to figure out exactly where she was (a dark, empty parking lot) before she called AAA. They told her they would be there within in an hour.

As the hour stretched into two, I became increasingly worked up. I was texting with Dave, the older two girls, and my brother Matt (the Sox were on, and that’s what we do.) I started to imagine the worst of course. What if the spare tire was no good? What if the car wasn’t drivable? What if the spare tire was missing? I eventually called my cousins who live about 10 minutes away from where she was just to line them up in case I needed them to go get her. She finally texted this to me:

And when AAA missed their second ETA, she texted me this:

Of course, I still took the opportunity to call AAA to ream them out.

They eventually got there, and they had no problem getting the spare tire (full-sized and brand new) on the car.

But, because I was so worked up, I tracked her phone all the way up 495 (the whole tracking the phone business might also be a separate post). At one point, it looked like it was stalled right by route 2, so I was ready to hop in the car and go find her in a ditch.

By the time she got home, I had a hot cup of tea and an egg sandwich waiting for her. She looked exhausted, and I had a headache. It took us about an hour to unwind.

I warned her these things usually come in threes.

And she has my car today.