But, first: a bit of a back story.
On Thanksgiving weekend, I traveled to Greensboro, North Carolina to perform at the Comedy Zone down there (it was my first time there, and it was such a beautiful club). No more than thirty minutes after my arrival at the hotel, one of the other hotel guests didn't see my car and backed into it in the parking lot. Shout out to the guy who did it since he had the decency to knock on my door, apologize, and give me his insurance information.
He ended up causing $3,000 worth of damage, but I was able to drive the car home (insert sigh of relief here). So, upon returning to Michigan, I took it to a local body shop to get fixed. Luckily, the guy's insurance company covered a rental car, which I was able to pick up at the body shop.
When I picked up the rental, I immediately noticed it had a low tire indicator light on. So, the mechanics tried to fix it, but couldn't identify which tire was triggering the light. Thus, they gave me another rental, and I was on my way.
Okay, and now onto the main part of the story.
On Friday, I had a gig in Brimley, Michigan. For those unfamiliar, it's in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, right on Lake Superior. I've had a few adventures there before, and I got to work with my friend Dave Dyer, so I was pretty pumped to be playing there. Oh, and did I mention you get to eat at the buffet for free? Because that may have been the part I was looking forward to the most.
About seven miles outside of Brimley, I noticed my tire light went on. Thinking it was due to the change in weather (it was, after all, -17 degrees there), I continued onto the gig. Well, first I called two friends to freak out.
After the show, Dave agreed to look at my tire. As we approached my car, we could both see it was completely flat. Panic quickly ensued as I had to return to the lower peninsula the next day for another show, and there were no Enterprise (the company I rented from) rental car locations even remotely close to where we were.
Dave was so kind throughout the whole situation. Not only did he offer to change my tire for me, but he also calmed me down when, after being on the phone with Enterprise for nearly an hour (my phone cut-out four different times, necessitating me to tell my story to three different representatives, none of whom grasped that I couldn't just bring the car into a nearby Enterprise location, which is the only thing they advised me to do) they told me it would be three more hours before they could even send someone out to put the spare on (which, still didn't help much since I couldn't make it all the way home on the donut as I was over 250 miles away).
Finally, I pitched the idea of me just fixing the tire myself. Well, not myself, but I mean, bringing it into a shop and getting the work done out of pocket. The Enterprise representative agreed.
Luckily, the guys that put the spare on showed up around midnight as opposed to 2 am, which is what I originally was told. By this point, it was -28 windchill, but they got the new tire on quickly, and they also told me there was, miraculously, a tire shop in Brimley!
What? A town that appears to only have a post office, gas station, and grocery store, actually had a tire shop? I couldn't believe it!
The next morning, I called the place before it even opened. And miraculously again, someone answered. I explained my plight of having to be downstate later that day, and the employee said "bring it on in; I'll get it looked at right away."
So, I drove three whole miles over to the shop, and $15 later, I was out of there with a patched tire!
Although, I'm still pretty mad at Enterprise seeing as the tire shop folks said "none of these tires are safe to drive on snow with." Apparently, they were all worn and none of them were in good shape.
But, alas, I made it home!
HUGE shout-out to the awesome employees at Mark's Tire in Brimley, Michigan. And a big thank you to whatever tire angel was watching over me that day.
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