The Golden Child

Imagine this...

You leave your house and hear a ticking coming from your car. Immediately, you have two logical (humor me here) thoughts. It could be a bomb. I mean, you do annoy and piss off an awful lot of people. Or, it could be something lodged in your tire. Two blocks later, you pull to the side of the road, either to duck for cover from the explosion or check out the invader that has latched onto your tire. Negative on both counts. You resume your drive to work listening to the ticking speed up and slow down the entire way. Once you get to work, after passing through one of the most crowded, confined streets in the city, you sail through the security gate into the designated parking lot only to find your tire half deflated with a portion of a small pipe stuck neatly dead center. Ten minutes later, it is completely flat. (And if you say, 'Well, only on one side!', I'll hit you.)

Now imagine that when you call in to work (yes, from the lot) to tell them you'll be as late as it takes for AAA to get there and put on your spare because you'd rather do it then than at midnight, a coworker comes out telling you he'll handle it, removes the soggy, metal laden tire and replaces it with your spare. He never even gets dirty. When you both walk back in, you are only 21 minutes late, have a safe ride home and most importantly, did not block half of a main thoroughfare at the beginning of rush hour therefore saving you endless hours of torture from angry natives.

I was indeed The Golden Child. I mean really, who unknowingly drives on a deflating tire and watches it go flat once they are safe in the parking lot at their destination. Thankfully me.