Monday, Monday

Gabe made it safely home last night from his week-long tour of the Midwest visiting friends and his various work offices in Chicago, Detroit and Minneapolis. I picked him up from the airport, and when we got home, Gabe got out of the car and said, "I hear something hissing." I said, "Maybe it's the air conditioner winding down." He said, "It sounds more like a tire losing air. Oh, well -- we'll check it in the morning." That sounded good to me, and we left it at that.

So, this morning rolls around, and boy, was it hard to get up. We amble our way out of the house around 7:45 AM or so (approximately 30 - 45 minutes later than when we really SHOULD leave), get in the Jeep, start it up, and then realize that the Jeep is tilting quite dramatically toward the front passenger side. At that point, we remember there was potential for a flat tire this morning, and -- sure enough! -- that's what we had. Our poor little Jeep has its entire weight resting on the rim of the front passenger side wheel. Thank goodness the Jeep has a full-sized spare (which we've never had to use until today), and I graciously offered to call AAA to come and change the tire (aren't I helpful? :) ), but Gabe noted that he knows how to change a tire and can handle it just fine.

After taking out the REALLY crappy jack from the Jeep, finding the lock nut remover piece to get the spare tire off of the back, figuring out how to put the jack together, loosening the lug nuts on the flat tire, putting a block beneath the jack, beginning to wind the jack up, realize it is tilting quite a bit and not looking super sturdy, getting the flat tire up off the ground, taking it off, putting the spare in front of the hub, realizing that the Jeep isn't high enough to get the spare tire on but the jack won't GO any higher, putting the flat tire back on, lowering the jack and Jeep, putting ANOTHER block under the jack to get the Jeep higher, RE-winding the jack up (this time high enough to get the new tire on), taking the flat tire off AGAIN, lining up the spare tire, putting the spare tire on, lowering the jack, tightening the lug nuts, and putting the flat tire on the back of the Jeep -- we were done. Well, I should say Gabe was done. I just did a lot of standing around for moral support. And to watch the jack should it look any more precarious or wobbly than it did. Very important.

At this point, Gabe was sweating buckets, so a re-shower and change of clothes were in order. Oh, and I did I mention that the spare tire was only at 16 psi, when it should be at 33 psi? We didn't really think our bike pump had the oompf to make up the deficit, so we ran to the Safeway gas station where Gabe filled the tire up with air and I ran into the grocery store and got Gabe a Nesquik strawberry milkshake and myself a latte from the Starbucks. All in all, we still made it to work around 9:30 AM -- only an hour to 90 minutes later than we really should have been there. And, we got some yummy beverages out of the deal. So, not a super bad situation. Oh, and Gabe took the flat tire to Discount Tire to be repaired, and they fixed it for free! Again, not such a bad deal. Just a little bit later start to our Monday. Thank god neither of us had meetings that we needed to get to first thing today!