Up In The Air

Two days ago the dogs woke me up at 4-something o’clock in the morning. I put them outside on the porch and went back to sleep. They again started barking and I got up. My cellphone app said the ISS (International Space Station) would do a 7 minute pass over my house beginning in 1 minute. I opted to take the dogs for their walk. A 7 minutes pass is about the longest we get to see it; essentially from horizon to horizon and overhead. Sure enough just on time it flew over on a particularly clear sky.

Soon things started to fly apart. This morning I slept in and missed most of the U.K. radio show I usually listen to over the Internet (http://Riveria.FM). Adrian, the Presenter, usually sends a song my way but unfortunately  I missed it. I am their furthest listener by the way.

I was invited to a lunch today and as I approached the truck I noticed the flat tire. Just last Sunday I had the truck at a neighbors farm and had the front right tire off to look at the brakes. This tire is the front left one. Had I taken it off I might have seen a leak or nail or whatever.

So my Sister drove me to the restaurant and mt friends said they would drive me home. After dinner we stopped by the Post Office because I had to pickup a package. It was too big and we re-arranged things in the car to set it in the back seat.Little did I know that the friend back there had set the carryout ‘doggie bag’ containing liver, some pork chops and gravy in the armrest between the drivers seat and my seat. As I got in the car my arm pushed it back and some gravy spilled on the carpet.

Not having any paper towels or napkins, I called my Sister asking to meet us at the top of the driveway with some materials as we needed a ‘clean up in aisle 1’. As we headed toward my farm we got stuck in construction traffic. It was at that moment that I realized that I needed to make a quick stop to the restroom. Something I had the night before did not agree with me. Luckily we were at a visitors stop (a coffee shop) and I dashed inside. They let me use the restroom and I was going to buy something as a thank you gesture but when I came back out, the two clerks were already outside (maybe a smoke break?). I do appreciate the use of the facilities, otherwise we might have had a ‘clean up on aisle 2’ if you get my drift!

So I get home and drink some Pepto and relax for a while. When I am finally able to get back outside I went to look at the tire. I have a small handheld air pump but it is broken. I wasn’t going to drive the truck down to the house so I drug the big air compressor up there. If I could inflate the tire enough to drive the truck, I would have taken it to either the other farm with the concrete driveway to swap out to the spare, or I would have taken it straight to Costco. Yes, I could call AAA but want to save that for some other emergency.

I hooked up the large air compressor and turned it on. It started gaining pressure then made very off noises that it shouldn’t. It looks as though it has oil in it, but it also looked like rain. I turned off the compressor and crawled under the truck and took the spare tire off.

I heard the sound of a raspberry as I decided to call it a night. I’ll decide what to do about the compressor and tire tomorrow.