So, how was your Thanksgiving?

I don't mean to be the dramatic one. I don't. Yet, around the conference table on Monday morning, I rarely have the shortest or simplest answer to the inevitable "How was your weekend?". In order to save my poor coworkers some time, I thought I'd write this one out ahead and just point people to their web browsers.

Tuesday, November 22nd
My "weekend" started on Tuesday afternoon (short week with Thanksgiving). My wife called three times during a meeting I was in, and eventually left a voicemail on my phone to let me know that she'd made it home fine, thank you. Apparently she'd run over a sawed-off metal signpost at the edge of the school parking lot where she was picking up our daughter, which did bad things to the tire, and to my pre-holiday mood.

Unfortunately, our minivan's spare tire used to be stored on the underside of the vehicle, held in place by a cable that could be raised or lowered for access. That cable had rusted through years ago, presumably leaving its remains, and our spare, on the side of a distant highway. Thoughtfully, I had also removed the van's jack and lug wrench kit before some previous long-distance traveling, possibly to lessen the risk of hurtling loose metal objects within the car in the event of an accident.

After consulting my mechanic and sheepishly admitting my lack of proper resources or forethought, I quickly swung by the house, grabbed the jack from a pile of similarly discarded refuse in the garage, and valiantly returned to the parking lot, intending to remove the wheel and get it to the garage in short order for replacement.

Two of the five lug nuts wouldn't come off.

Hoping that the chintzy fold-up wrench that comes with the jack kit was at fault, I dashed to my nearest auto parts store and purchased a shiny four-headed stainless steel lug wrench. Assuming that a tool crafted specifically for the task at hand might do a better job than what felt like a toy wrench made from tightly-wound aluminum foil (seriously, I could probably bend it with my bare hands), I headed back to the van. Did I mention that November evenings in Indiana get dark around 5:30? Oh, and it was raining.

The shiny four-headed stainless steel lug wrench did not live up to its reputation. After spewing a carefully-crafted stream of expletives towards franchise auto repair stores, their mediocre products, and automobiles in general, I looked up and locked eyes with a late-staying student being escorted to a car by a man I could only assume to be his father.

I waved.

Wednesday, November 23rd
At 7:00am, I called the mechanic again and explained, haltingly, that I had been unable to remove 2/5 of the bolts holding the wheel in place. His sage advice, generous for the hour, was to secure a socket wrench to the offending nut, then hit it really hard with a big hammer. If that didn't work, he'd come and tow it to the shop.

Perhaps my hammer wasn't big enough.

After what I felt were significant blows to my socket wrench (not to mention my pride) with little success, I called the mechanic once more and inquired as to the availability of his towing truck. "Just swing by the shop and leave me your keys, then you won't have to wait for it. I'll call you when it's ready." That sounded just fine to me. Oh, by the way, the front tire on my car is starting to feel a little funny, can you see if there's a nail in it or something? Wouldn't want TWO vehicles out of commission, would we?! They found a nail in the tire and plugged it. "Let's just add it to the charge for the van when we're all done."

Another disaster avoided? Oh, hardly -- it gets better. For you, good emotionally detached reader.

Leaving the van in better hands than mine, I attempted to work from home for a couple hours, until the wife and I could go get the van. On a lark, with repaired vehicle (figuratively) in hand, we decided to see a movie. Why not? It's "Thanksgiving Eve", our car troubles are "over", and the kids are out of school. Because we had both vehicles at this point, I followed LaDonna to her gym, parked my car in the lot, then rode with them to the theater.

The Tower Heist. Good movie; funny in parts. I can't tell if Casey Affleck is a really great actor, or just has a weird voice.

On returning to the gym to caravan home, we discovered that now the tire on MY car was completely flat. Judging from the chunk gouged out of the sidewall of my tire, I had probably grazed the same severed signpost while trying to angle my headlights to illuminate my feeble efforts the night before, albeit with less immediately obvious results. The garage fell for the nail puncture's red herring, but had missed the true source of the slow leak. You know what, I don't have a spare for the car either. It's 11:30 at night. I'll come back for the tire tomorrow.

Thursday, November 24
Thanksgiving Day was wonderful. I made a pumpkin custard that went over well with the kids, and very well with those who'd had a number of margaritas by that point. Now where did I leave my car keys?

Friday, November 25
Having left the car sans front-passenger-side wheel in favor of football and cornbread stuffing the day before, I awoke early this morning eager to replace the second tire in three days, and return to something of a normal waking life. However, rushing out the door to drop LaDonna at work had left me without sufficient time to find my suspiciously missing keys. In something of a desperate gamble, I deducted that I must have left the keys in my car in a late-night, Casey-Affleck-induced stupor, and headed back to the gym bearing a sound tire, a somewhat banged-up socket wrench, and the wide-eyed hope of someone who obviously needed more sleep.

Because seriously, even if the keys HAD been in the car, how would I have driven two vehicles back home by myself. Right? (That's almost a direct quote from the gym's security guard to me, while watching me remount the wheel, who had guarded my vehicle against angry BMW-driving gym members who don't pay their monthly sauna fees to put up with a crappy Buick with three wheels in their parking lot for three full days, and local police officers who were more than willing to tow the junk heap to the nearest landfill. Thanks, Boss)

Finally, the end is in sight. After securing the wheel in place with four sturdy lug nuts (the fifth had broken off while trying to remove the flat, but at this point that inconvenience is like a mosquito bite on a  rhinoceros, or something), I ran back home, recruited a friend to drive me BACK to the parking lot, and drove my car into the sunset.

Actually, I drove to Target to buy my daughter a doll for Christmas. It's Black Friday, people! Why are you still sitting here?