Glory!

My needs are small.

I have often talked about growing up in reduced circumstances, but don’t feel sorry for me, because I don’t. I didn’t go hungry. I had clothes that fit, yet growing up with iffy cars and bleak family budgets does something to you (or it did to me, anyway).

I am decades past having to push a car downhill to get it to start, and yet there are some mornings when I sit for a moment in my driveway (I have a driveway!) thrilled that my car started with no pushing involved. (I actually live on a hill so getting it going wouldn’t be that big a deal.)

I am blessed, is what. But for some reason, maybe because of all the times I’ve been stuck by the side of the road waiting for someone to pick me up or help me push my car, my notions about financial solvency live in my car. Iffy cars have marked me as lower-middle-class until I die. The house can burn down and I can get a big, honking, unexpected bill in the mail, but if my car is running, who cares?

I know. It’s silly.

But earlier this week, we took the twins out to pizza, and as the boy was jumping in the back seat, he caught his coat on something. It was dark but I could see a…metal spike?… sticking out my tire. It was one of those things where you can’t believe your eyes and I had to use the flashlight on my phone to actually see it, and I mean it was in there, and couldn’t be moved, yet the tire wasn’t flat. My son tried to fiddle with it, as did a guy who was passing by, but we all voted and decided that if the tire held air, I should leave the spike until I could get it to a shop.

So that’s what I did. I drove an hour home thinking about that spike and calculating how much a new tire would cost and whether someone would try to convince me to get all new tires, because just one new tire makes your car drive funny. I got home, got some pliers, and removed the spike. When I brought it inside, under the light I could see that it was a dental implement, like one you see below:

I do not remember driving through a dentist’s office, but oh well. I went to sleep telling myself that if my tire was flat the next morning, I would throw on the spare (I’m from Missouri, where even beauty queens change their own tire) and head to the shop.

That morning, though, the tire was still holding air. Glory! Since I drive grandkids around, I took it to the shop, anyway, carrying the metal pick as a kind of show-and-tell, as a “you’re not going to believe this” kind of a thing. The guy at the counter laughed (I am nothing if not entertaining) and when they checked it — for free — they found that the pick had missed the artery, and no damage was done. None. Glory! Again!

Here’s where my upbringing works in my favor: I’m almost thankful that I picked up a metal spike to remind me that things don’t have to be so bad. They may look pretty bad, but they may not actually be all that bad. They may just be an awesome story in the making.

Happy weekend.