A Hitch In Our Git-Along

I know, I know. You've missed me. I've missed you too! I'm a bit ashamed that it has been almost 3 months since my last post. In my defense, things have been a little busy. And, it's one of those things where you want to post, but it's been so long and you have so much to catch up on that you don't know where to start. But I promise to be better. I'm just going to have you up on the most recent events and hope to have a chance to fill in the holes in due time.

So, last Friday (08.08.08) after the amazing opening ceremonies, Brent and I decided to go see a movie with our friends, Quin and Natalie. We had a great time and enjoyed our company and then drove homeward. A date night like any other date night. We were driving home with the windows down because it was a surprisingly pleasant night. About halfway home, we were coming up on an unidentified object lying in the road. Unfortunately, there was median to our left and an indecisive TransAm to our right. We were coming up on the looming object fast, but we had no room to swerve. Brent decided to take it straight on. I didn't hear anything under the front tires, but then I felt the car lurch. 

We craned our ears, but we weren't sure what we heard. It sounded like there could be some rushing air, but the sprinklers were at work in the median so we weren't sure if that air noise was our tire or just in our heads. We drove a few more yards and then Brent decided we should pull over. You guessed it, we had a flat. Of course, we were on one of the darkest portions of the street - no streetlights to illuminate our dire plight. We quickly called our friends and Brent got to work loosening the lugnuts. As Quin and Natalie got there to shed some light on our dire plight, a police officer offered his assistance too. Since we weren't under a streetlight, we were glad that he moved in behind us with his lights going because we'd almost been hit by someone who didn't see that we'd stopped and nearly smashed us. 

Once Brent got the tire off, Quin and Natalie started looking for the hole. They didn't find anything in the tread, and we were hoping maybe we'd just popped the bead. As Quin set the tire in the trunk, I noticed a small gouge in the rim. That was when we saw it - an inch and a half gash in the wall of the tire. So much for that tire!

Once the police drove off, we all drove back around to see what could inflict such damage to our tire. We parked in a vacant parking lot and ran out to the middle of the street to find the offending object. I got there first, and what did I see lying unassumingly in the middle of the street? A trailer hitch. The whole hitch. No wonder we had a gash in our tire! When Brent took in the car to fix the tire, he made a $5 profit on the hitch. I guess it wasn't such a bad misadventure after all.