Wednesday, August 03, 2005
My life as a Chinese Fortune Cookie
Today was an interesting day, in the old Chinese way. I'm in my car, pulling out of the driveway and noticing a significant list to starboard and the steering is a bit wonky. I have my suspicions and it does indeed turn out correct: the passenger front tire is flat.
I'm already running a bit late to work, but hey, what's another hour or so? Jack up the car, remove the airless tire and slap on the rather pathetic excuse for a spare, causing my car to transcend the look of silliness into the realm of ridiculousness. Once the donut is secured to the wheelbase and the flat secured in the trunk, I head out in search of the nearest Tire Kingdom, a few miles away.
There, I am informed that it would take at least two hour for them to patch the tire. Not wanting to stick around in a waiting room with a blaring TV and decade old car trade magazines, I head back home. I inform The Office that I will be even later than expected.
My job at The Company can mostly be performed at home; even if a server needs to be rebooted I can call a partnering company with access to the datacenter and have a warm body go in and perform the necessary button pushing if it comes to that. Email and checking the trouble ticket system can be done from home. The only thing I can't do is answer The Office phone. For now (as one of the longer range goals of Smirk is to have The Office phone forwarded as needed).
Two and a half hours later, I call back to Tire Kingdom and yes, my tire has been patched and ready to pick up. An hour later, after finishing up with a hysterical client that's having email problems and can't get anyone at the office (well, no wonder—Smirk having jury duty, P studying for exams and I with a donut for a tire) I retrieve the now patched tire. Since it is so late by this time I figured it's of no use to actually go into the office and instead just go back home and swap the patched tire for the donut.
On the way home, I pass a gentleman riding an adult tricycle whose tire fell off in a most comical way, and I am reminded that it could have been worse.
