Flat out gratitude.

Episode 1: Kryptonite-D

I am not a fan of over-the-counter drugs. They just make me feel wonky. Things that are supposed to put me to sleep keep me awake, things that are supposed to be non-drowsy leave me floating in a haze…I just don’t like them.

After blowing my way through an entire box of Kleenex (pun intended), I decided that I could no longer go through my day in nasal misery. I had already felt this way for a few days. So I found in my desk drawer at work a box of Claritin-D allergy relief medicine.  I knew that I had issues with it in the past, but it was better than facing a chapped nose and another box of Kleenex.  So I took it.  Then I re-read the box: 24-Hour Claritin-D. Wham!

I figured a small dose would be enough to get me through the day, but I wasn’t expecting to be in it for 24 hours. Whenever I take medicines of this nature, I always end up with twitchy limbs. As one would imagine, that it makes sleeping rather difficult. And that it did. Pow!

Every time I started to doze off, I would suddenly be jolted awake with a leg or an arm twitch—sometimes my entire body would jump; almost in the way you feel when you lean too far back in a chair but catch yourself just before that tipping point. Claritin-D had become my enemy as I cursed it between twitches. I ended up getting around 50 total minutes of sleep. I was beaten down. Sometime during my twitchfest jamboree, I must have turned off my alarm clock as I woke up one minute before the time that I generally leave for work.  Blam!

After taking one of the shortest showers I have had in recent memory, I rushed out to my car only to be stopped in bewilderment.

Episode 2: Attack of the Michelin Man

“Huh. I think that tire is a little flat. Yep. It sure is. It’s completely flat…Neat.”

Surprisingly, I wasn’t super upset. In fact, it was kind of amusing at first, given the events from that night.

I snuck back into the house in search of a tire pump, trying not to wake my wife. We only had one of those little pumps which are most likely meant for inflating small things—like basketballs, or bicycle tires. But it’s all I had.

I made my way back outside and began to inflate the tire. Now this pump, being tiny as it is, requires lots and lots of presses with your foot to get the smallest amount of airflow. It also is extremely squeaky. Each press of the foot sounds like bird murder going on in my driveway. Not wanting to face the disdainful faces of my neighbors, I again snuck back into the house to retrieve some lubricant in order to silence the beast. Sadly, it didn’t work—it only managed to make a slick mess and probably helped to facilitate the ensuing events.

I gave up on being concerned about the noise and just pumped away as quickly as possible—after all, I was already late for work. As the tire got nearly full, I noticed a small hissing that I hadn’t noticed before. I had a 4 inch screw embedded right in the center of the tire.

I thought, “This can’t be good.  Maybe I should just change it out for the spare mega-mini-micro tire thingy in the trunk.” 

When pulling the baby tire from the trunk, I noticed a brand new can of Fix-A-Flat tire repair.

“Aha! This will be good, and I won’t have to change out a tire!”

So I shook up the can, attached it to the leaky tire and then remembered that I probably should look at the directions.  They said to remove any objects that might be embedded prior to using the spray. Hmmm.

“Fair enough,” I thought. “I guess I can remove it.”

Sneaking into the house for a third time, I grabbed what I thought to be a good screwdriver for the job. Sneaking into the house for a fourth time, I grabbed a better one. And sneaking into the house for a fifth time, I grabbed a pair of pliers. Sneaking in again, I grabbed a more appropriate pair. Sheesh.

I fearfully unscrewed and extracted the invader from my tire. “Wooooosh!” The tire deflated almost instantly. The can didn’t say anything about that. It did say to continue to spray the contents into the tire until it stopped. What it should have said is: “Continue to spray until the can leaks and sprays its gooey contents all over yourself.” Blargh.

Another sneaky journey into the house to clean up the mess and I got back at it, trying to inflate the tire again.  

Pump. Pump. Pump. Pump. Wheeze. Pump. Complain. Pump. Pump. KERPLOW!

I thought the tire had exploded. Instantly it went flat, as did my amusement with the situation.

Episode 3: Time to make the doughnuts.

I rummaged around the trunk, looking for the tire iron and jack, but was having issue in finding the things. This is the first time I had ever had to change a tire on this car and wasn’t quite sure where the tools lived. Frustrated, I almost gave up when I then noticed a clever little door behind which was what I needed.

“Okay, this is better.”

I started slowly winding the jack and noticed that my shoulder was really sore—I had been doing some kettlebell exercises two days earlier, and my muscles were still quite tender. Every turn of the jack was causing more pain—but the car was up off the ground before I knew it and I felt this would be cake from here out. The lug nuts thought otherwise. I had to put my entire body weight into trying to get them loose, straining my shoulder in the process. Grrrr.

Tire off, doughnut on, jack coming down, I felt better knowing that I could at least get to the repair shop and have the flat fixed. But as the car sank slowly back down to the ground, so did my spirit. I noticed the little doughnut tire was empty—it went as flat as original. So I grabbed my little inadequate pump, hooked it up and began to murder more birds. But rather than an annoying “squeak” coming from the pump, a definite “whoosh” was heard instead.

“That’s queer. I wonder what’ that’s about?”

It wasn’t the tire that had exploded—it was the pump hose.

Another trip into the house. Returning with electrical tape, I mummified the hose using nearly the entire roll.

“I’ll show you, hose.”

Pump. Pump. Pump. Pump. Wheeze. Pump. Complain. Pump. Pump. KERPLOW!

This time, I knew it wasn’t the tire when I felt the debris from the pump fly up, hitting me near my face. The entire fruits of my efforts were gone with one quick “whoosh” as the tire emptied out in seconds. The pump had sprung apart and the pressure gauge had given way. This wasn’t good. I didn’t have another pump—and I wasn’t making another trip into the house.

So I put the pump back together as best as I could, further mummifying it and haphazardly finagling it enough to get air back into the tire. It only took 10 minutes of pumping. My shoulder was angry and I knew that we’d be having a conversation later in the day.

Finally! The tire was on and I was ready to just move forward into my day. My hands and clothes were filthy and, as much as I didn’t want to have to do it, I sneaked back into the house to get cleaned up. Apparently, my wife had awoken and called out, “Hello?”

I went upstairs to find her and let her know what was going on. I was frustrated by the near defeat in my battles with Claritin-D and Michelin Man and was a bit curt and snippy in trying to explain what was going on. I lost that battle—quickly, and rightfully so.

Frustrated even further, I hopped in the car (gently as to not pop the baby doughnut tire), and made my way to the local repair shop. When the attendant examined the tire, he pointed out just how rough the other three were. They couldn’t replace just the one without doing its neighbor, and the other two were nearly bald. I needed four new tires.

“How much is this going to cost me?”

“Four tires plus labor and recycling fee, you are looking at $535.50.”

“Um. Huh. I certainly didn’t wake up from my 50 minute nap expecting to drop that kind of money. How quickly can you put them on?”

“Thirty minutes. Maybe less.”

“Sigh,” I said, literally. “Well, whatchagonnado? I’ll see you in thirty minutes.”

So I walked over to a local coffee shop and bought a rather tasty cup. The day was looking a bit brighter—or maybe it was the caffeine exciting the pleasure centers of the brain and numbing the pain.

I made my way back to the shop where I remembered that I had a $50 off coupon that, for whatever reason, I had saved in my bag. I don’t keep coupons. I just don’t. So why I had this was a bit of a mystery. In hindsight, it was a Godly gift.

Episode 4: Morning coffee jolt.

I thanked the man for his quick service, thanked my Visa card for being there in my moment of need, and hopped in the car on my way to start (over) the day. As I pulled out of the parking lot and onto the country road headed to work, I thought I’d have another sip of my yummy coffee. Someone didn’t put the lid on quite tightly enough.

“That darned coffee barrister! I can’t believe she was so…uh, hmmm. I was the one who put the lid on.”

I just broke into laughter.  Hot coffee had just splashed all over me, staining my shirt and pants, and warming my bits to an uncomfortable level. This day had become a comedy of errors—simply  absurd.

And that’s when I surrendered and gave thanks to God. In that moment, my frustration fell away and I saw just how trivial all of this was. I was driving to work with new tires, on a beautiful road, in beautiful weather. I thought to myself, “Hey—I don’t have to walk to work. I am blessed enough to even have a car, and a job. I had a coupon. I am able to enjoy a (half) cup of coffee, the price of which is a full day’s salary in some parts of the world.”

Just the day before, I had a friend give me surprise $200 for helping fix her computer—money I wasn’t expecting, and money I didn’t expect. I had a random $50 off coupon in my bag for this particular repair shop. Wow.

This is when I realized God’s awesome blessings. He knew this would happen and he set things in motion to help take care of me in this situation (although I could have used a little help with the pump thing, I was still very grateful). Instead of wallowing in the frustration of the morning, I was further blessed with perspective. It was one sleepless night. It was one tire. It was one unexpected hour out of my schedule. In the big picture, it was a dot.

God came through as a superhero does, bringing with Him the gift of understanding and relief in humor. The morning events could have taken my joy captive, leaving me angrily bitter, disgruntled and wallowing in self-pity. But God took that poisonous Kryptonite and threw it as far as east is from west, just as he does with our sin when we bring it to Him with a repentant heart. I was grateful for this, as was I in knowing that he offered forgiveness for the things I murmured under my breath (none of which are worthy of noting, but all of which are nothing to be proud of).

My life is blessed in so many ways. I think we tend to lose site of that as we focus on all the villains who come to rob us of our happiness. There are so many others in the world who would trade everything to have even a small bit of what I have and be where I am. Who am I to take that for granted? True, I am not a multi-zillionaire rock star, but my Dad is. He has laid out great gifts all around and ahead of me. I just have to take time to take notice of them, being thankful in every super adventure.