A Tiny Tragedy
I stood there and watched the tire quickly deflate in real time, like it was auditioning for a slow-motion disaster reel. It didn’t just lose air—it exhaled its will to live. It felt like life took a pin and popped that tire like a balloon—pfffft. I was too stunned to cry. I stood there amazed and in awe at the laws of physics in action right in my garage.
Car troubles are never good. They’re inconvenient, financially cruel, and always make you question your life choices. The part itself costs seventy-five cents. The labor? $675—plus tax. If you’ve ever wondered what money sounds like—it’s the hiss of air leaving a tire or the whirring of a starter that’s too tired to start.
People talk about horror movies, but adulthood is its own franchise. No need for Pennywise to come slinking through your sink drain or The Strangers to come knocking at your front door at midnight. Not when you have an engine light that suddenly flips on or the spontaneous chirping sound of an almost worn serpentine belt. Ghostface isn’t a mask, it’s your reflection in the windshield when something glows on the dashboard that has never glowed before. So, unless Freddy Krueger can help change a bad starter motor—and he can’t with those nails—he can take a seat. You want to scare an adult? Dig that metal mani into a radiator hose.
And yet, I couldn’t even blame this one on the universe. It was all on me, which is worse.
I knew the tire was on its farewell tour. I had days—days!—before trading in the car, and I chose denial as my coping strategy. I pretended everything was fine because the tires were technically still round.
I was inches from the finish line.
So close.
After the air was completely out, the tire had gone completely flat and floppy on the bottom. The last time I saw a tire look the way mine did after the great deflate was in a Looney Tunes cartoon and it was singing. This tire had no air left to make a sound. The only noise in my garage was inside my head as I tried to process what was happening paired with the ridiculous timing of it all.
Had I actually looked at the tires a few weeks ago, I might’ve noticed that metal threads should not be visible, and that “sparkly” is not a recommended tread finish. Thankfully the tire managed to hang in there until I was in my garage and spared me a legacy of being a safety statistic on the evening news.
The other tire didn’t look any better and even I’m not stupid enough to take my chances on blowing a second tire, only this time it likely would not be in the safety of my garage. I was able to call a friend and get the tire changed, which was good because the lug nuts were on so tight, he had to stand on the tire iron and jump to loosen them. Nothing tests a friendship like watching someone pogo on your car parts.
I wasn’t sure what I was mad about the most:
Buying new tires before a trade-in.
Not beating the dealership to the punch, if only to make them question the string of life choices that led me and these tire threads to their lot.
Or hoping the trade-in value would at least refund my emotional trauma.
I went with the last one, because I’m an adult and this isn’t the end of the world. It was just another Friday—in the adulthood horror franchise; where the unexpected engine lights terrify you and the humbling pfffft sound is your bank account deflating