Tires

This week has led me through a series of events that have shown me how much the little things can matter. It's always the smallest things that either create or solve the biggest problems or evoke the greatest joy. I'm going to attempt to analyze an experience and turn it into an analogy, so I guess we'll see how it goes.

On Thursday, I drove a friend and myself to a church of another faith in Provo to rehearse something we were asked to perform during their Easter services. As we exited the car, there were some people doing a group activity. We went inside and rehearsed very well. When we returned to my minivan, we got in and pulled out of the parking space into the alley which was slightly wider than my minivan. Oddly, the car leaned towards my side, and not feeling fat enough to do the job alone, I decided to see if my left front tire was helping lower the car a good 6 inches in that direction. Sure enough; flatter than a destroyed water balloon. Suddenly aware of the danger the rim of my tire was in, I became nervous when a car pulled up behind me and showed unnerving signs of anxiously waiting to get past my debilitated vehicle. Slowly pulling into the stall I had just left, I put the car into park and shut it off. To abbreviate the story, we pulled off the tire and threw on the spare to find it lacking roughly 25 of the 30 necessary PSI. As I got on the phone to call my dad for the second time and ask him to bring an air compressor, he pulled in at that exact moment. Lovely... As I rolled the misshapen tire to the trunk, my finger hit the valve stem. I was surprised to hear a *PSSSSSSSSSH* of escaping air. Every time I moved it, air escaped. A quick investigation by my dad revealed that a mischievous person with nothing better to do had done it, seeing no other way for it to crack by itself. Such a small change to produce such catastrophic (or at least inconvenient) results.

Case number dos (that's for Mark). I leave the school on Friday, all ready to bike home, and my mom is sitting in the parking lot. "That's odd," I thought. Oh well. After a particularly rough day I wasn't too happy to hear that Costco had put up a stink about fixing the tires on our minivan because they found a 2-inch nail in the right rear tire, causing it to be almost flat by the time they got it from Provo to the store in Orem. How inconvenient that a small piece of metal could find it's way into such a place, especially such a time as this. Oh well, my dad could probably fix it.

Case number three. About 30 seconds later, I walked over to my bike. I unlocked it, threw my trumpet on the back, clipped my helmet on, and got on with a... thud? What is this!?!? Yet again, I was suffering the simultaneous effects of gravity and a flat tire. Even better: I changed the tube of that very tire less than a week before. Just perfect. Happy that my mom had decided to show up (but frustrated nonetheless) I threw my bike into the suburban and headed home.

At this point, I was feeling much like a bottle of soda bungee-corded to the roof of a black car in July as it trekked down a dirt road. Or like one of the three tires innocently treading along paved territory until *wham*, an intruder strikes. After a stressful shift at work, I came home and saw my dad looking at the back tire of my bicycle with a puzzled look on his face. He beckoned me over and introduced me to the cause of his astonishment. There, in my back tire, was a teeny, 1.5 inch long tack-of-a-nail, embedded not just in my tire once, but in through the bottom and out the sidewall! Not only that, but it was positioned in such a way that unless I was going backwards when I hit it with enough force to send it completely through, the head went in first, instantly deflating it without my notice. Great! Just great. Who invented tires anyway?

Well, after it's all said and hopefully done with, I decided to try and find some intrinsic meaning behind all of this, being the studious person I am (or just desperate to find something to blog about... I mean...) So what do the three incidents have in common? They were all somewhat annoying and shockingly ironic / coincidental, but beyond that. Each tire suffered only a small defect, and yet it caused the entire contraption to cease to work. A small slit in the valve stem, or a few punctures by a stray nail. How often in our lives does something small and seemingly insignificant happen that causes us a lot of inconvenience and discomfort? Things we didn't ask for, things we'd never ask for, things we didn't plan on, things we wouldn't wish on anyone... Teeny tiny things that cause big problems. They most certainly happen. And in one thought process, that could cause great discomfort to the pessimist's mind, that "Because this one thing had to happen, my whole life is ruined or put on hold until I can somehow fix it, if that's even possible." Problems such as these are indeed quite rare, but they do happen.

The other side of the story might sit back and think a little further. Why does a small trial have to make such a big difference? Of course, sometimes it can, but it's nothing that can't be fixed. Sure, I couldn't drive the minivan or my bike home, but with so much help all around me it was only a small inconvenience. And the damage is nothing that a patch or an inexpensive repair can't mend. Good as new! So all in all, when we feel deflated by chance or by the misdeed of another, don't give up! Think about how small a nail is, or how small the holes were. Even though the temporary effects seemed large and unsolvable there isn't any recursive damage that will haunt me in the next few years. There's certainly no shortage of air to fill your tires when you're fixed up, good as new. Everyone stumbles across a puncture now and then, but it's nothing that can't be fixed. I am no exception. But because of the awesome people in my life that are willing to help me out when I've got a flat (or three) I know I'll always get where I want to go. So whatever that was worth, apply it somehow, and make it worthwhile. And for future notice, parents are awesome, and without mine, I'd still probably be stuck in Provo or who knows else where.

PS - Thanks Orange!

PPS - Even though there's no Script to 'Post' twice after - It was interesting to see a new 'Paradigm' - (Word of the Year) and hear things interpreted a different way than the ones I've come to know well as I've grown up in my religion. I deliberately took the Philosopher's approach (yay for academic enlightenment!) and it was quite an interesting experience.