Aesop Changes a Flat (or two)

I have a confession to make: I lied yesterday. Not intentionally, of course, but I did. Rather than spending yesterday night playing Silent Hill 2 (which is, by the way, probably the scariest game ever made, unless you preferred Siren), I ended up sleeping over at a friend's house. As a result, I'm entirely incapable of fulfilling my promise to tie Watson's experiments on conditioned fear responses to why outdated survival-horror games are still some of my favorites.

I did, however, get sucked into a Really Obvious Life Lesson during what should have been merely a minor adventure, and so if you'll forgive me for tackling the psychology of fear another time, I'll stall by telling you about my day.

A friend of mine happens to be a collector of outdated video game consoles. How he got started in this, I have no idea, but it probably began with the phrase "Dude, remember Sinistar? That game was the shit." (To clarify, being 'the shit' is a good thing, despite all denotation to the contrary). In any event, he chanced upon the opportunity (via Craigslist, of course) to purchase a hard-modded Xbox & nine controllers for a mere $60. The only stipulation was that he had to be in White Marsh (north-west of Baltimore) to pick it up by 8:30 AM, lest the seller depart on his vacation for a month.

Needless to say, we woke up at 7, hoped in his car, and drove up toward Baltimore. As we were leaving, I noticed that one of his tires was a spare (colloquially, a 'donut'). Ensuing dialogue:

Him: "Oh, yeah, I got a flat like, three weeks ago, so I've been rollin' with the donut."
Me: "Three weeks? Those things aren't meant to last that long. You sure its not gonna wear through?"
Him: "Relax, dude. I drove up to Baltimore just last week, and it was fine."

The good news, at least, is that we made it up to White Marsh without incident, retrieving the Xbox with time to spare. But every silver lining has a cloud, and this one occured at mile marker 73 on I-70.

Him: "Hey, does the tire sound funny to you?"
Me: "The squeking changed pitch a little, maybe..."
Sudden *POP*, followed by *whumpwhumpwhumpwhump...*
Me: "Yeah okay, pull over."

The donut, sadly, was no more. It had worn clear through, rupturing in several places. Now, the interesting thing about blowing your spare tire is that you can't replace it (unless you're the sort to carry two spare tires, I suppose, but that's just begging for trouble). All we could do is wait on the side of the road until his mom went out, bought a new tire, and drove it up to us.

After changing the tire (see below!), we got back on the highway and continued home. About ten minutes from his house,

Him: "Okay, now what's that sound?"
Me: "Kinda sounds like we're dragging something. Pull over real quick."
Him: "If its another flat I'm gonna...."

Naturally, it was, and he did. An examination of the flat tire showed a large amount of wear on the inside portion. What had happened was that, because the spare tire is smaller than the normal one, the tire opposite to it was somewhat canted as we drove. Thus, rather than wearing evenly across the bottom, all the wear was on the very inside edge of the wheel. This caused it to accrue damage more quickly, and after three weeks of uneven wear, it too gave out on us.

We again called his mom, she brought us yet another tire (wonderful woman, she is), and we finally made it home, after dealing with two flat tires in under two hours. The obvious moral, by the way, is that if he'd just taken care of the original flat when it first happened instead of riding around on a spare for three weeks, we'd have saved the hassle and probably the second tire as well. A stitch in time... (Of course, the same applies to holes in jeans, not that I listen.)

Next Time: Medical Research & Reed Richards!
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Appended! - How to Change a Tire

Because hey, you might not know, and then you'd be screwed.

Things you'll Need:
-A jack & a lug-wrench (probably in your trunk, with all your junk; the jack is the one that doesn't look like any sort of wrench)
-A spare tire (also in your trunk, most likely)
-A flat tire (attached to your car where a non-flat tire ought to be)

Steps:
1) Pry off the plastic thingy (often improperly called a 'hubcap')
2) Loosen the four nuts holding the wheel on (important you do this before lifting the car, or the entire wheel will turn instead of just the nuts).
3) Jack the car up, placing the jack under a solid piece of the frame, often indicated in a diagram on the jack itself.
4) Remove the nuts completely (don't loss them!) and lift the flat tire off.
5) Put the spare tire on where the flat tire was. It might be a bit unwieldy; focus on getting at least the bottom hole on properly, which should make getting the others easier.
6) Put the nuts back on. Lower the car back down with the jack and (important!) re-tighten the nuts.

By being able to change your own flat, you will successfully avoid fully 30% of chances you have to wind up in a horror movie.