North Carolina Car Trouble . . By Demand

By Chris

A blog fan asked for this story . . . that happened nearly a year ago. Here goes . . . as recapped in an email to my boss last Sept. . . .


I'm having to spend the night in High Point, NC. I got a flat tire in the middle of nowhere, only to discover that my tire has a "key" that is needed to remove and change it. A key I do not have, and apparently was not put back in its proper place the last time my car was serviced!! So there I am on a back road pulled over in the grass with a flat tire and no way to change it, with a dead snake under the car! God sent along a helper though (I knew he would). Thanks to my random helper in a pick up truck (I don't even know his name) I hooked up with an outfit called Bill's Truck Service who sent a road crew to help. For an hour and a half they attempted to remove the flat tire, using their mobile compressed air machine, wrenches of all sorts, hammers and chisels (all of which is usually used on 18-wheelers). None of it worked! So, the crew of two cleverly tied up the whole with some type of twine (no kidding!), and assured me that this improvisation would get me a half-mile up the road to their shop. I got there alive on my "stitched tire", which they had used their mobile air compressor to temporarily inflate. It was hissing air, but it got me to the oldest, dirtiest truck stop I have ever seen (Bill's). Once there and in there garage, they broke out a blow torch, which the dude lighted with his cigarette, and vice grips and eventually manipulated the locked lug nut off. There was more banging with chisels too, in between perplexed looks and mini-conferences in Spanish between my helpers. I could only imagine what they were saying. I couldn't decide if this was helping or hurting my situation! It was a little disconcerting to have two guys banging and blow torching your car in rural North Carolina! But, in this town where there was ONLY a truck stop, no hotels and no lights, I was just trusting they could do something to get me up the road to civilization. As nice as they were being, I had no desire to spend the night with Bill's crew! They eventually got the nut off, and they were able to put my "donut" spare on (they could not patch the tire to fix it, because it had a 1-inch square hole, and they only sold 18-wheeler tires). At this point, the two workers had been helping me for more than two hours, yet Bill only charged me $25 (someone was looking out for me). I tipped my two helpers well, and hit the road, slowly, to find a tire shop. Arriving in High Point, I saw that there was no shortage of tire stores, some national names even! But, by 6 p.m., this town's businesses had ALL shut down, and I was assured the nearest tire was hours away, which would be unsafe on my donut and half mutilated lug nut at this point. So, to the Hampton Inn I went, where I noticed a belligerent guy on crutches hobbling down the middle of a four-lane highway, yelling at the top of his lungs! Was I in the Twilight Zone? Police emerged on the man, and moved the action in front of the hotel entrance where I needed to enter (and where Sim had stopped to check on me on her way home, after I called to ask her where she was, which ended up being 10 miles from me!) She drove me to pick up some dinner at Wendy's (again, someone is looking out for me). Eventually, the police arrested the deranged crutch man and cleared the way for me to secure a room around 9 p.m. So, tomorrow I will find someone to fix my tire, which may take awhile and will probably eat away most of my day. But, with any luck, my cell phone will be working if you need me!

End of email . . .

and now, the rest of the story.

I found a great deal on tires at a local-owned tire shop. So, good I decided to replace all four. After all, I was still far from home . . . what if I got another flat on one of the three other, still-locked tires. This shop needed to well past 1 p.m. to get the other three tires loose. New tires on, I departed High Point a full day and a half late. I had missed Teresa's birthday!

Thinking the terrible experience was behind me, I noticed some strange charges on my credit card. The Wet Seal . . . Rack Room Shoes . . . Gas . . . all on a card only used for work-related expenses. Seems my card was stolen on my journey, on top of everything else. Co-workers got a great kick out of this . . .and it was pretty funny . . . and the first in a series of strange travel things that happened to me over the past year spent up and down the Atlantic coast. I'll post more soon.

I'm writing this from Charleston, SC . . . from where I will leave tomorrow on a VERY SMALL plane to Norfolk. I'm betting there will be a story in that somewhere. Pray for me!