The Beast Slayer Saves the Day

This afternoon Bossman left to go on a sales trip (he won't be back 'til Friday.. yaay) so I took a short break and plopped down in the chair in the corner of Lulu's office. We were sitting there gossiping madly chatting quietly when I looked up to see Thelma standing in the doorway, looking kinda sheepish and nervous.

"Oh Mahala... I hate to tell you this.." she muttered.

"What's goin' on?"

She sighed heavily, then pursed her lips, shaking her head slowly in that way that southerners do before they tell you really bad news, "You have a flat tire."

My head rolled back, my eyes closed and I released a moaning, guttural snarl from deep down in my core, "Ohhhh gaaaaaaaawd whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy."

"Now, it's not flat 'cuz of it sitting in your yard for two years, it's got one of them big metal peg board hooks stuck in it," Thelma explained. We'd been discussing earlier that I'd probably need to buy tires before too long, due to the car being parked in the grass and how that may have caused the tires to dry rot.

The discussion then lead to whether or not I had a spare, a jack or the knowledge of how to change the tire, none of which I was sure of. We eventually called upon the expertise of the Bubbahubby out in the plant who we'd called upon to slay the ginormous snake last summer. He's already proven himself to be handy on the rare occasion that I have to be the delicate female.

I walked out to the car with the Beast Slayer, who examined the tire and announced that it was indeed flat after pulling the huge hook-thing out of it.

"Do you know whar that hook prolly come from?" he asked. I shook my head to indicate that I did not. I figured the Dark Angel of Mahala's Eternal Bad Luck had just been working over time again. "Way-ell.. I'll just tail you whar it come from. That hook right thar, prolly come right from Cletus' garage. He's got one of them boards to hang his motor belts on."

Great.

After we looked at the flat tire and determined that I did indeed posses a spare and a jack, I left the tire changing duties in the capable hands of the Beast Slayer. I returned to my desk and deleted all the messages from angry customers on my phone without listening to them handled some sales calls. The Beast Slayer returned to my cubicle, carrying a large mallet, which concerned me a little and lead Bubbles to ask if he planned to "knock the far outa someone."

"Um.. yer spare is on there.. but um..." he mumbled.

"Don't tell me.."

"Yer spare needs some air in it," he delicately explained.

"It's flat?" I asked.

"Purdy much.. yeah."

My head hit the desk. The Beast Slayer went on to explain that the new station in town had an air pump over on the side of the building, that he reckoned it would cost me a quarter and I'd probably be okay to drive that far if I went real slow.

So now I'm driving on my spare until I can run the tire with the puncture wound up to Cletus on my lunch break tomorrow. I'm going to see if he can patch it.

I'm almost afraid to ask.. what's next?