Gathering of the Clouds (The Prequel to Dinner Plates)

  
Introduction: I recently finished editing my June 10th post “Dinner Plates” when I noticed that it begins at the end of what was a rather cloudy month around here. Then I remembered something I'd written awhile back that describes exactly how the month began. So here without further ado is that previously un-titled story:

Earlier today the sky was blue, the air was calm, and one of my favorite local restaurants had just called to tell me I’d won a free lunch in their business card drawing. Ha! ...and I thought there was no such thing as a free lunch. Maybe I should buy a lottery ticket today. With all the optimism of a springtime moth beguiled by a 100 watt light-bulb, I wandered out onto my deck with a thick book and a tall glass of iced tea when the phone rang again. This time it was my wife calling from work to tell me her car had a flat tire. Let’s review that first paragraph: There is such a thing as a free lunch …however, it’s customarily served with a side dish of karma.

“When did it go flat?” I asked.
“I don’t know” she said, as though it was an unfair question.
“One of the employees just looked out the window and noticed it was flat.”

Well, with all of them pressed up against the glass sizing up the situation, it soon became obvious that I, being only twenty-two miles away was in the best position to open the trunk and change the tire. With that news the wind gathered up a few dark clouds, and followed me down to my wife’s place of employment.

I opened the trunk to find that the spare tire had unfortunately been left in the spare tire compartment ...underneath the carpet, below, the trunk-mat, under a couple folded lawn chairs, bags of rock salt, various notebooks, blankets, a gym bag, extra shoes, a handy cargo net full of handy cargo, an emergency kit, and a variety of other stuff, all of which had to be pitched into the parking lot in order to flip, unlatch, and turn the various gismos that would eventually release the spare tire, the jack, the jack handle, and the lug-nut wrench from their convenient factory installed positions. Well this must have been quite a sight, because the clouds overhead began laughing until they started crying. And they cried real hard for about an hour.

As it turned out, the correct answer to my aforementioned unfair question “When did it go flat?” was “quite awhile ago” according to the guy at the tire shop, because all the clues suggested that the tire had been going round and round in an un-inflated condition long enough to render it un-reparable. We’ll skip the part where the money rushed out of my wallet faster than the air rushed out of my wife’s tire, and we’ll fast-forward through the part where I had to put the new tire on in the rain. Let’s jump ahead to the part where I’m back home with a hot cup of tea, relatively dry, typing this story. The rain can pour and the wind can blow and I don’t care anymore because… What the hell was that noise? Hang on a minute, would you please?

~ leap forward 20 minutes with the miracle of time lapse notography ~

Okay, I’m back again; this time to report that the hot tub cover just blew across the yard, and I’m no longer relatively dry. In fact I’m soaked for the second time today. It didn’t just flip open like it does sometimes in a windstorm. This time it bent the big metal arm (that holds it up,) and broke one of the support brackets clean in two as it sailed across the deck and onto the lawn. It looks like a tough repair to me. I’m pressed up against the glass looking at it now, just outside the window there. I think I’ll call my wife to ask if she can drive home and fix it, while I go out and have my free lunch.

...There I go, flying into that 100 watt light bulb again.