It wasn't far from Mansfield, Ohio, when the borrowed tire on the borrowed car blew out with a mighty "thumpa-whumpa-whump!". So, after a pleasant interlude spent on the berm of I-71 attempting to locate wrenches and jacks and things, I was off and running! Well, not running too fast, as the little Mini-Spare said not to go above 50mph. This was written on a big yellow Caution sticker, in capital letters, so I can only assume some poor chump somewhere went 52mph and crashed and died and his heirs sued the Miniature Spare Tire Corporation for millions. As I envisage a far more glorious end for myself than cashing out in a borrowed Hyundai by a cornfield in the middle of nowhere, it was at a cautious pace that I set off in search of a tire shop.

First up was JR's Tires, a prosperous looking joint with plastic signs advertising tire brands I've actually heard of. This reassured me: as everybody knows, those brands which are most heavily advertised obviously are those of the highest quality. Unfortunately however the place was shuttered. A helpful local, a burly mountain of a dude with a pony-tail halfway down to his ass, informs me "You might try Eddie's, up the hill a piece.
"
So! Off to Eddie's! The behatted old-timer at the counter (Eddie perhaps?) looked at me suspiciously for a while, like maybe you just can't trust someone with car problems (I would have thought this prejudice to be somewhat of a drawback, considering his chosen profession of car mechanic). He takes long pauses between saying things. I must say that those pauses were not wasted: obviously Eddie is a far more cerebral type than he looks, and clearly spent these intervals deep in thought. After I explained the car wasn't mine, he cottoned on pretty quick, saying "so I reckon you're not looking to spend a whole lot of money..." You could almost hear the gears grinding away inside his skull!

Sadly Eddie, despite being a mental titan under those dirty overhalls, had no tire to fit, not even after he focussed his prodigious brain-waves RIGHT ON THE TIRE. He stared off into space for a spell, then gave me directions to a place he thought might be able to help. Like all good directions, it covered half a page and started out with "head west on route 30 for a while...."

Oddly enough, I did actually find the place, a cinderblock shack with peeling paint and a 70's era RV and no fewer than five broken down vehicles in the field surrounding it, and stacks upon stacks of used tires. The place was called- seriously- "the Wheel McCoy". The dude in charge -well, I assume he was in charge, if for no other reason than he had more teeth left than the rest of his crew combined and wore a bandanna patterned after the US flag- russelled me up a tire and asked me a most disconcerting question for a tire salesman: "Now, yew ain't plannin' on doin'a whole lot a highway miles with this, are yuh?" But plainly, he was an expert in his field- after looking at the Hyundai, he says "that other front tire, that one's pretty wore out too. I wouldn't want no tire like that on MY front wheel, uh-uh. Blow out any time. What you wanna do,is rotate that tire to the back wheel there, and put one of them back tires up here. yuh. I'd do that 'fore winter, I was you."

Then he instructed his minions to change the tire, being sure to include the direction "now don't forgit to grab that jack over there!". Now, while its difficult to envisage a tire-shop employee who would contemplate changing a tire without the benefit of a jack, and you might think such an instruction unnecessary to any but the most severely retarded of tire-changers, I prefer to think of it as a sign of the perfectionism of my gap-toothed benefactor, whose attention to detail is such that he will overlook nothing in order to ensure a satisfied customer and a JOB WELL DONE.