I am driving along in the center lane of I-695 at 70 miles an hour. Miles Davis Quintet – the old one, from the fifties, with John Coltrane, Red Garland, Paul Chambers and Philly Jo Jones – is playing Surrey With A Fringe On Top on the car radio. I am thinking about whether I want to grill a chicken breast or a couple of polish sausages for supper. Suddenly I sense, rather than hear, “POP!” followed by “chu-chu-chu-chu-chu”. Uh-oh, thinks I, it’s a blowout. I hit the flashers and drop my speed to 55. The fool behind me, instead of letting me get over, moves to the lane on my right, and lays on his horn. Now the car is beginning to slew a little, and I fight the wheel to keep it in my lane until he passes me. He slows down with me, and forces me to stay in the middle lane for nearly a quarter of a mile, before finally getting past so that I can move over to the right lane. By now, I can tell the tire is really chewed up, and I am beginning to worry about whether the rim is wrecked. I curse silently, as I pull off.

I get out and survey the situation. The tire is ripped to shreds, but it looks as if the rim may be all right. I won’t be able to tell for certain until daylight. The shoulder here is narrow, so I get back in the car, and start it up. Still leaving the flashers on, I slowly drive forward another quarter of a mile until the shoulder widens out, and the exit lane for Perring Parkway is to my left. I feel safer, working on a car at night, with an extra lane between me and the two thousand pound objects hurtling by me at seventy miles an hour. Turning the motor off again, I go ‘round to the passenger side, and fish around under the seat for the lug wrench, jack handle, and jack. I look for my flashlight, and remember I left it in the house after using it last night.

I put the lug wrench on a wheel nut, and give it a good heave counterclockwise. Nothing happens. It suddenly occurs to me the nuts, being on the right hand side of the car might be left-hand threads, but I figure I am probably not going to wring one off by persisting, and if it doesn’t loosen, I can aways try the opposite direction. So I reset the thing with the handle horizontal to the left. Standing sideways to the car, and hoping my sandled foot doesn’t slip, I raise my foot and give a good stomp on the handle. With a loud creak of metal on metal, it turns a quarter turn, and I thank my lucky stars no one put these lug nuts on with an air wrench set to a gazillion foot pounds of torque. Using the same procedure, I loosen the other four nuts.

Meanwhile, traffic is whizzing by. I hear the whine of their tires rise as they approach. There is a crescendo of sound, accompanied by a flashing of their headlights, and they are past, the whine lowering in pitch and volume, until it is overtaken by the next approaching car. I wonder where all the cops are, and wish one would come by and stop, so that I would have some steady light to work by. I think to myself, a set of red and blue flashers would make things a little safer, too, but no such luck.

Turning my attention to the spare, I undo the two lug nuts that are not locked holding it onto the rack. I carefully set them on the rear bumper, but then think better of it, and gather them up and place them on the passenger seat. Just what I need is to have one roll off and into the night, I think. I then remove the keys from the ignition. After some fiddling, the key goes into the lock, and I remove it. I take off the last nut, and drop the spare onto the ground. More fiddling, and I figure out how to get the bicycle carrier off of it. I fold it flat, and toss it into the back, on top of my sax cases.

Placing the jack under the rear axle, I begin to crank the thing up into the air, wondering all the while if the car is going to stay on the jack, or if I will have to find another jacking point. But I get lucky, and the car slowly rises.

By now, the sweat is running into my eyes. Did I mention it is hot outside? I guess the ambient temperature to be somewhere around ninety or so, with humidity to match. I am soaking wet and miserable, but think to myself, it could be worse; it could be twenty degrees out, with four inches of snow on the ground and more coming down. I remove my glasses, and wipe my eyes on the sleeve of my shirt.

In due course, I get the spare tire on, let the car down, and stow the old tire and rim, and tools. As I drive off, I think about other times I have had flat tires, and how, not so many years ago, I probably would have had no spare, no jack and no lug wrench. I silently thank my Dad for teaching me to be resourceful, and not put off by mechanical difficulties; and I thank my brother for having grown conservative in his old age, and making sure the vehicle had a jack, a lug wrench, and a decent spare tire.

Surprisingly, I find when I arrive home, that the whole exercise only added fifteen minutes to my drive home; it seemed a lot longer than that while I was changing the tire.