Looked like this all day:
We did have our weekly breakfast at the Barbecue House, though. That was the brightest, sunniest part of the day. Otherwise it was warmish and gray. I believe the “sun” — that mythical ball of burning hydrogen out in space — called it quits around 3 p.m.
Not that you’d know. The gray just got grayer, so it is all supposition.
Went out to watch a swim meet, but got stuck in traffic. There was a fender-bender on a two lane road and no one moves. I was five cars back — just far enough back that I could not see what the problem was — and no one moved. The third car, the first one not in the accident, must have never seen a crash before. I imagine the driver was gripped with fear. “Now what? I’d go into the oncoming lane, but there’s already been one crunched bumper. No police officer or insurance agent should have to work one small crash in the same place!”
And so we sat, and sat, and sat. The guy behind me had enough, and he and I swapped lanes, cruised by and continued on with our lives. Later, when we realized the swim meet was a bust, I took a different route home. Who knows how the shattered headlight glass was holding things up down that little road.
In the subdivision then, there’s an SUV parked at a weird angle on the road. It looked like the driver was turning into the driveway and just gave up. A bit farther down I was preparing to show him how it was done — “See? Allll the way in the drive … ” — when I noticed a tire in our yard.
There should be no tire in our yard.
A young man is walking around the SUV, which has only three tires on it. He is OK. His father was driving, he is also OK. This is his daughter’s SUV. He’d just had serviced yesterday. She complained of how it was handling so he got in to take it for a spin. He’d made it about 100 yards and this happened:
So this is the drama of the neighborhood. The tire flung off — we think all of the lug nuts were either not returned or improperly attached. We only found one lug nut.
One of the bolts had been sheered off. Some of the rim had been bored out from the damage. The fender well had been cracked.
When the tire slipped off it spun back and up, denting the fender and damaging the running board. The alignment, the disc, the suspension were all damaged.
And here is the AAA wrecker pulling the truck on to take back to the dealership. Note the gouge in the road:
The father was relieved he’d been driving rather than his daughter. All were relieved it happened in the neighborhood rather than the interstate. Dad said the dealership has worked on his cars for years. All agreed it was an honest mistake.
So we met some neighbors we did not previously know. The dad is an attorney. His daughters are in school at nearby Southern Union. His son, who may be about 14, is on pace to become the next crocodile hunter. Apparently he removed an 8-foot alligator from a pond across town last summer by himself.
Do not mess with that kid.
And that’s an exciting evening in our quiet little neighborhood.
