I received a phone call last week telling me that as part of my internship I would be going to court on Monday morning to observe the proceedings. Although it meant getting up a little earlier than I expected, I was still pretty excited to go (especially since I've never actually seen a real court proceeding). So I got up this morning, showered, got ready, put chicken in the crock pot so that dinner could be ready when we got home tonight, and then I went and woke up Luis. We left the apartment 10 minutes before I needed to be at the law firm (where I was to meet up with the other attorneys to drive to court together). Luis opened the door to the car and then said, "Um, that is going to be a problem." Just my luck; we had a flat tire! (This explains the swerving our car was doing on our way back from Springville the other night. ) I stood there for a second trying to decide what I should do. I decided that I would just call the attorneys and tell them that I wouldn't be able to make it. Luis tried to convince me to just ask one of our neighbors for a ride, but I just couldn't bring myself to knock on one of their doors at 7:20 AM. The attorney that I spoke with was very understanding and told me that there will be other chances to go to court. After I got off the phone, Luis and I proceeded to calmly change the tire (fortunately I did have one of those little temporary spares in the trunk).
After Luis and I put on the spare tire, I washed my hands and drove to the tire place down the road to buy a new tire. So a guy comes out to help me and asks if there is any way they could fix the tire. I told him no since the tire was pretty bald to begin with. He insisted on looking anyway. Sure enough, there was nothing they could do to save that tire's life. So he took my car to the back to put on a new tire. After about 5 minutes he comes right back out to tell me that one of my other tires had a bubble in it and that it was really dangerous to be driving like that. So I gave him permission to change that tire too. 3 minutes later he comes back out to tell me that one of the other tires is the wrong size. I asked him to show it to me (mainly because I was a little skeptical about the "need" to change it). So he took me out to the car and explained what they wanted to do with each tire (and while I was out there he told me that the 4th tire was pretty bald too and that I should change it). I told him that I would wait to change the last 2 tires and asked him to only change the spare and the tire with the bubble. And then he says, well while you're here, let me show you what is going on with your breaks. Apparently my break pads are almost gone and they wanted to fix that too! Moral of the story: my car is falling apart and I need to buy a new one.