Finding the Silver Lining

From the archives:

Any Monday where you don't find yourself laying on your stomach under a car in the shoulder of the Thruway is a good Monday.

Explanation: Back in 2005, I was driving to Poughkeepsie from New Jersey on a Monday morning when I blew out my back left tire on my Bronco. I'm no stranger to replacing a tire, so I found a place to pull off the road with sufficient space to do my work. Having never actually changed a tire on the Bronco, I soon discovered that the jack required me to lay physically under my truck while I awkwardly twisted the truck into the air. Eventually overcoming my fear of being mowed down by a car while lying under my truck in the shoulder of an interstate, I managed to get everything ready for removing the tire only to discover that the tire had been replaced at some point with oddly sized lug nuts that didn't play well with any of the lug wrenches I had in the truck. So, in short, I risked my life for nothing and had to call a tow truck anyway. Good times.

Editor's Note: This whole ordeal was still much better than the first time I ever blew out a tire in 1992 (in the time before cell phones) on I-80 in Middleofnowhere, Pennsylvania, where I spent thirty stressful minutes figuring out how to get my donut on, only to discover that the car wouldn't start afterward.