Flat in the front, screwed in the back.

Twice a week, sometimes more, my commute is double what it typically is. Meaning when I head to my "big city" office, it's about half the length of my "HQ office". I don't *always* take Jake on my drives to HQ. It depends on if I think the weather will be worthy of driving topless, on how much gas is in which car, or (as has been the case this month), what Jakes mileage is. Jake's 7th birthday is August 13th, and he will celebrate it with 34,998 miles on his odometer. I intend to own Jake for a long, long time to come, so I'm very judicious about the mileage he sees.

This means that I've been driving my other car, Lula Mae. She's also a Mazda, and I purchased her with 40k original miles. She's been with me now for 14 years, and if there were any way for me to keep her for the rest of my days, I would. Her appearance notwithstanding, she has features that NO other vehicle has. For instance, somewhere on her chassis is a parking karma (or would that be "car-ma"?) chip that GUARANTEES I will be able to park in the front of whatever building, venue, or other location I'm destined for.

Scoff if you must, but I've tested this for more than a decade. I get to park in front of the busiest business, café, office building, post office, library, hospital … it makes no difference at all. I have literally watched as not one but four prime parking spots have opened up when she and I enter a parking lot. It's remarkable.

She is NOT glamorous. Her clear coat is pealing so soon her paint will have issues. Her lapbelt alarm will constantly go off if you don't know to wrap it around the shoulder belt once. (I consider this a security PLUS. Who the hell could drive very far with that kind of annoyance?) But she is a real jem. She's never let me down or left me stranded. In fact, her favorite place to have issues is in my driveway, which is FINE by me.

Which is why I didn't bum out on Thursday when I walked out in the morning to take her to HQ and saw the flat tire – passenger side front. I was kinda expecting it, because I've been hearing a "tick tick tick tick" in one of her tires as I've been driving, but I couldn't pin down which tire, and I'd check them all each time I parked but couldn't find anything.

So today I played auto mechanic. I jacked her up, put on her full-size spare (I refuse to use donuts), and drove her to the tire shop to have them repair or replace the flat. Turns out that it wasn't a nail, but a failure in the tire wall, so once again, she was REALLY kind to me. She could have easily let that blow out on my drive or, heaven forbid, on the bridge(yikes!) so again, no harm, no foul. I picked up the replacement from the shop a couple hours later, and drove her home and again heard "tick tick tick" from her wheel base. When I parked this time, I found it – a large screw in the tread on her back drivers side tire. *sigh* So jacked her up AGAIN, put the new tire on the back, rolled the "screwed" tire into her trunk and went back to the shop.

How do I know that Lula Mae is a she? 'Cause of the way she goes through shoes.