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Off/beat

When it comes to tire karma, don't tempt fate

By JAN GLIDEWELL
Published August 21, 2005

"I am," I said to the nice young lady from the wrecker service, "in front of the Padmasambhava Stupa house in Crestone, Colo."

"Could you spell that?" she said.

"No. There is a sign, but for a lot of reasons cell phones don't work in this area and if I walk to the sign I won't be able to tell you what it says and I don't think I can memorize the correct spelling of Padmasambhava. In fact, I can barely say it."

"What street is it on," she said.

I was ready: "Carefree Way, and before you ask, the Cross Street is Wagon Wheel, which is off of Camino del ..."

"I've got it," she said.

"Really?"

She did, in fact, have it, and told me I had about two hours to sit in this beautiful Buddhist holy place, enjoy the tranquility and the mountains, and speculate about how tire karma is a really bad thing to mess with.

There are things you should never gloat about or even mention. One is your health and the other is the health of your tires.

A few days earlier, I had been driving down a highway outside Shreveport, La., and saw a guy out in the blistering heat changing a tire.

It dawned on me that I hadn't had a flat tire in more than a year and hadn't had to change one in more than 30 years. It also dawned on me that I had probably cursed myself by thinking that.

Somewhere in the middle of Texas, which takes between three days and 12 years to drive across, depending on how many book tapes you have, I realized that my van was pulling badly to the left.

Long story short, or at least shorter, I had a busted ball joint, which had also caused a front tire to shred to near-disintegration. I got a new ball joint and two new tires (Who started that conventional wisdom about buying tires in pairs? Tire companies?) and congratulated myself on having ducked the tire curse bullet.

Four days later, on a Sunday, I was on a rural road. (Trust me, in Colorado a rural road is rural unless there really are areas where all of the towns are named Cattle Guard.)

I heard a whistling sound and realized I had blown a tire, one of my two old ones.

Another dispatch conversation ("You have to take County Road GG off of the highway to County Road 61 to County Road 64 to where it intersects with County Road T to ..."). Another four-hour wait (by now I had learned to carry food, water and books). Another lengthy tow, two more new tires while I tried to amuse myself in a Wal-Mart.

But again all was well, until two days later when I found myself at the stupa, which is a sort of Buddhist shrine and a place to communicate with the universe, trying to find my spare (When did they start hiding them under the vehicle?) and then trying to figure out how to use a jack that came in multiple pieces (instead of the old, reliable four) and required an engineering degree to even assemble. My tire had gone flat during the night.

A few hours later, I had now added a new valve stem to my ever-growing (and ever more expensive) collection of tire-related purchases, sold my firstborn child (who is 41 and will probably be unhappy to hear it) to finance towing charges, and was on my way to another town to deal with cell phone problems since something in the magnetic energy of the San Luis Valley annually gives my cell phone an insatiable appetite for $35 batteries.

I have learned my lesson.

I have no comment on how my tires are doing - or on my health - or (why tempt fate) on how my cell phone is doing.

And, just in case the nice young Buddhist kid who told me I probably really did have bad tire karma was right, I have decided in my upcoming search for a new vehicle not to kick any tires.

I will simply caress them and whisper an affirmation.

[Last modified August 21, 2005, 00:50:20]