Flat Tired

(photo from web)

January 21, 2015
Day 266

Today begins the last 100 days of this blog series (thank God), and as if right on cue, I got a flat tire last night on my way home from the gym.

It was dark.  It was cold.  I was in shorts.  The tire was very clearly broken beyond repair, thanks to a pothole the size of Germany, and it just completely deflated me as much as the tire.

Murphy showed up with his Law too, because not only was it nighttime, but it was a poorly lit area too, and my cell phone was almost out of battery, so it cast very little light on the situation.  The lug nuts were either factory sealed on or otherwise rusted tight (it seemed they were both), so as I stepped on the wrench to take them off, the metal only pushed through the soft rubber bottom of my sneakers.  I had to change into my brown work shoes (while still in shorts, though I wasn't too concerned with fashion at the moment), and they finally helped me pry the lug nuts off.

The whole process took me approximately 45 minutes, four phone calls, and three texts to complete, but complete it I finally did, and got home safe on the donut I keep in the trunk.  How did I do it?  Because I'd done it before at least twice.  Much like Harry Potter conjuring his Patronus, I remembered I could do it, so I did.

That's life then too, isn't it?  We do more than we think we can or want to do because we've had to before.  The older we get, the wiser we supposedly get, and things just become part of the game.