More adventures with Old Maxine

By TRISHA PHELPS

Mt. Pleasant News

This probably isn?t going to surprise many of you at this point ? at least not as much as it surprised me ? but I had car problems again.

It all started when I decided to take a trip to Johnson county to see Scott, my boyfriend.

All of the sudden, a light on my dashboard went on saying ?low tire.? I was halfway between my starting point and my destination, so I decided to pull into a random farmer?s driveway and check out my tires.

I thought my tires looked fine, but I wanted a second opinion. The farmer noticed I was there and came out to see what I was doing, so I had him take a look too. He agreed that the tires on Ol? Maxine (my car) were fine, and that he thought the computer in my car might be acting up.

Great.

So I continue on my trip and when I got to Scott?s place, had him find the tire pressure gauge and I checked how much air was in my tires. (I wanted to show off that I actually do know a little about cars. I think I might have impressed him.)

Turns out two of my tires were about five pounds low, so Scott got out a hand pump and filled them up for me.

On my return trip to Mt. Pleasant, my car was driving funny, kind of shaking a little, but I ignored it because my old car did it all the time. I assumed eventually all cars did that.

I was wrong.

All of the sudden, I heard a loud noise and something black hit my car and flew up. Then my car was driving really funny, so I pulled over right away. I thought maybe I had hit something.

Wrong again.

When I tried to open my door, it wouldn?t budge. Somehow the bottom was dented just enough to make opening the driver side door more of a challenge.

When I finally got it open a few minutes later, I found the cause of my problems. I had blown a tire.

A frantic call to my mother, texts to Scott, three cops and a rescue from my dad and I was back on the road ? going much slower than normal with an incredibly attractive spare on my car.

Apparently, blowing a tire is one of those things that can ?just happen? which makes me slightly paranoid anytime I think my car is acting up. I guess I just have to get over that.

Luckily no one was hurt, my dad was around to save me and all I needed was a new tire. Things could have been much worse.

Hopefully this is the last column about my car problems you will be reading in a long time.