Flit Tur

I remember fondly my visit to Memphis, TN. As I was leaving my hotel on the music circle, I pulled into a gas station to fill 'er up before hitting the road for my next destination. After pumping the gas and paying, I started to get into my car. Behind me, a voice called out, "Flit-tur!" I have absolutely no ear for languages, including the foreign tongue spoken in the deep South, so not recognizing that the person could be talking to me, I climbed into the driver's seat, buckled my seatbelt, and spasmed straight into the roof of the car when someone knocked on my window.

The old man had been sitting outside the station office, but was now tapping on my window. I lowered it a bit and asked if he was talking to me.

"Yep," he repeated, "flit-tur."

My, that was helpful, but I still didn't have a translation readily available, so asked him with a "beg your pardon" to please repeat what he had said. No, the third time was not the charm, so I motioned that I was going to open the door and get out of my vehicle, which turned out to be the right thing to do as he smiled and kicked my "flit-tur." He fixed me right up and I was on my way in no time, but the memory lingers.

Since last Wednesday, I've had a flit tur on the RAV, for which I have now stopped at a tire shop 4 days in a row to have fixed. Believe it or not, there is "nothing" wrong with the tire, so it cannot be fixed. Kinda reminds me of a favorite song from back in the day: my roof don't leak when it don't rain, and a tire cannot be flat if there ain't no hole in it.

Yeah, I did.

I actually asked how it could go flat 4 days in a row and have nothing wrong. I asked if it could be alignment, balance, hitting a curb, the fill stem, or a faulty dashboard light, whatever came to mind. For my effort to win at guess what's causing the tire to go flat, I got the patient manspeak smiley face that totally sold the, "No, dear. There's nothing wrong with the tire." Now we ALL know that there is SOMETHING wrong with the tire or it would not go flat, but that isn't a conversation I want to have with a man who believes his inate charm and addressing me as "dear" can convince me to the contrary.

Tomorrow, I drive up the hill and spend a full 12 hours away from home, so I'll toss the manual air pump into the cargo deck, along with all the teaching stuff I have to schlep to work and back. Tuesday I have the morning to try yet again to figure out why the tire is losing air and have the problem fixed.