Pop goes the tire (again).

Man. I guess there's something with me and Mondays and excessive unfortunate circumstances.

As the temperature last night dipped to a nippy 6 degrees, I enjoyed the minty taste of not one, but two glasses of a friendly goldschlagger with my comrade in our old college stomping grounds. When we realized all of the chairs and barstools around us were on tables and the bartender was giving us a not-altogether-subtle "go hither" look, I checked the clock and realized it was time to bundle up our woolens and hit that cold air face first as we trudged to the car.

We skipped out the door, merrily holding hands and singing to whatever Britney Spears song last unfortunately graced our ears. We brushed off the car with our bare hands, seemingly impervious to the pangs of deeply thrusting your hands into ice-cold snow. The car started like a champ, and I turned onto the street that would eventually lead us to the highway that would eventually lead us to our warm beds.

Except...my steering wheel was strangely and relentlessly pulling to the right.

We pulled over, my comrade jumped out, and said three words. "Flat. So. Flat." Whereas my back left tire was flat last week, this was the right front tire. And it was cashed. We're talking it was so out of air that the bottom of the tire was inverted, as if a giant of behemoth strength kicked it straight from underneath with all of the might he could muster.

My buddy painstakingly cranked the car up with a screwdriver (since I apparently don't have a crank tool that fits in the actual crank) and as we were sliding the spare on, the crank tipped backwards and my car crashed down. This forced us to have to close the crank all the way, shimmy it under the car, and start cranking the car upward again from zero - with nothing but that damn screwdriver.

Then we dropped the car off at the auto shop because frankly, I did not want to even look at the thing anymore much less ride in it. As I shoved a bottle of wine into my friend's mittened hands, hardly a fair reward for the unexpected surprise he had to deal with that night, my mind was split into two emotions: 1. bursting with gratitude for my unbelievably kind friend who has now changed two of my tires in one week in the frigid, painful cold and 2. bursting with the understanding that I really am going to have to learn how to change a tire if I keep insisting on driving during these blasted Minnesota winters.