Perhaps you’ll recall when I picked up a nail that flattened my rear tire back in June. If not, then surely you remember when I picked up another nail for another flat back in July. And there was a flat before those two that predated this blog by a few months that I never wrote about. So you’d think that getting 3 flats in a year would statistically insure me fully inflated tires for the next decade at least, if not the rest of my life, wouldn’t you? If you did, you would be wrong. Today it was a screw. Again, in the rear tire.

I can’t adequately describe for you just how exciting it is to discover your motorcycle’s rear tire going flat at 85 miles an hour. Everything start feeling loose, and the rear end starts sliding from side to side, and you know you have to fight the instinctive urge to hit the brakes because the rear brake will strip the tire off the wheel and the front brake will make the rear end even looser and want to swap places, and you stop breathing long enough to notice that your lungs hurt because you’re holding your breath, and… Well, let’s just say it gets your attention. All of it.

But I managed to get it off the road safely, and then AAA did their “we can’t help you” thing but sent a $65 flatbed anyway, and the nearby motorcycle shop did the $115 tire repair; you know, the usual story.

So how I’m at work 5 hours late and about $200 lighter. And I’m just happy to be here.