There are plenty of excuses not to write blog posts, and most of them are not worthy subjects of blog posts. However, this morning I was all ready to write a post after I returned from an errand, but I was delayed by an irritating "tock-tock-tock" sound which seemed to be coming from the rear wheel of the car. When I got back, I examined the rear wheel closely, but found nothing out of the ordinary. I even shook it, and nothing was loose. So I proceeded to the front wheel, ran my hands around the tire, and sure enough, there was a heavy metal wire about eight inches long, around an inch or so was embedded in the tire, and the rest had been flattened into a semicircular shape which hit the road with an audible "fwap" with every rotation of the wheel.

Here's the tire, shown with the offending wire (partially reinserted for the photo):

Infuriating! I wondered how on earth a wire could manage to bend itself into a shape almost fiendishly contrived to puncture the next tire to drive over it, but my thoughts soon turned to a worse problem.

The pitiful object in the trunk of the car which calls itself a "spare tire." I guess they're known as "temporary tires," but this one's life is so temporary that I refuse to drive on it. For starters, it's almost completely flat.

Who in his right mind would drive the highways on this?

If there's one thing worse than a flat tire, it's a flat spare tire!

So I have to drive the damned tire somwhere and because there's also a little tear on the side, no ethical tire seller would repair it, and I'll probably have to buy a new one. Yes, I know, that's good for the economy, but it doesn't help me write my morning blog post!

Hey wait! It just so happens that the very tire that was so rudely impaled was itself the subject of a previous blog post. Nearly three years ago (at the height of the tire blogging craze), I replaced all four tires in this car, and I wrote a post on my air card from the Hub Tire Company in Norristown.

I had forgotten the name of the company and the receipt was not in the glove box, but all I had to do was search the blog, and there it was -- right down to a picture of the place.

I just called them, and while their warranty doesn't cover punctures like this, with any luck, they'll be able to repair the tire.

So I'm headed off for an exercise in tire blogging nostalgia.

Why, this is more fun than getting upset....