Of Teeth and Tires

Jacob lost a tooth this weekend, and now all the events of the past week suddenly make sense. You see, almost every time Jacob loses a tooth, we get a flat tire. The first time this coincidence occurred, we were cruising down I-85 S on our way from Charlotte to Atlanta. When the tire blew, Chris was able to steer the car to the shoulder, and that was about it. The ground sloped, and the car was at somewhat of a precarious angle. While Chris was patiently (ha) trying to hoist the car into the air with a flimsy jack, traffic was flying by at 70 mph a mere three feet away. And in the backseat, Jacob was wiggling and wiggling his first loose tooth. The car rocked off the jack three times that day, and during one of those jarring occurrences, Jacob's tooth wiggled free. It was a happy day--for Jacob.

The next time we got a flat tire was in Virginia outside of our apartment. We were on our way to the pool when we noticed that our rear right tire was completely flat. We had picked up a nail from all the on-site construction, and Chris spent most of his Sunday afternoon putting on the doughnut and taking the damaged tire in for a patch. You can read about the rest of the day's events here, in which Chris was accused of punching out Jacob's tooth after he finally made it to the pool to swim with us.

It has been suggested that perhaps Jacob has been chewing on our tires, and the flat tire/losing a tooth phenomenon is not a coincidence. I will share the events of this week, and you can be the judge.

Monday evening on our way home from the grocery store, Chris and I noticed a high pitched drilling sound coming from the engine area of the SUV. No warning lights came on, but we decided it was better safe than sorry to get it checked out, and since the SUV is still under warranty and since we live at the border, I called a San Diego dealership Tuesday morning and scheduled an appointment for noon. Benjy was lucky enough to avoid this chore via a play date, so Andrew and I made the trek alone, armed with toys and snacks to wait out the hour and half long assessment.

Andrew was busy making eyes at the women in the waiting room and winning over the grandpa sitting next to us, when the service rep came in to tell me the news. The bad news was that our power steering pump was going out. The good news was that this was covered under warranty. Since my power steering was certain to be completely disabled in a matter of hours or days, she insisted that I leave the SUV in the shop while they ordered the part. She could give me a loaner car to use for free while mine was being fixed. It just wasn't safe to drive, she said.

She started the paperwork on the loaner car, and I started frantically trying to call Chris, who was, of course, on lunch and unavailable to take my calls. A loaner car sounded great, in theory, but I had no idea whether or not I could actually drive the car back into Mexico, and if I did, if I would have any trouble with U.S. Customs and Border Patrol when I tried to drive it back in. I needed to talk to my husband/attorney, and he had the audacity to take a lunch break. I tried to stall with moving the car seats, while I anxiously awaited him to return my call, but in the end, I loaded Andrew and drove the loaner car to CVS where I proceeded to panic and buy batteries.

Finally, my phone rang. I was pretty worked up by that point.

"I can't get home," I half-sobbed, half-shouted into the phone.

I'm not sure how Chris was able to interpret the sounds coming from my mouth, but he patiently asked questions until he somehow understood the full story. To his benefit, he never suggested that I calm down. Then he said he'd call me back.

While I waited, I did what any mother would do, even irrational ones like me in that moment. I fed Andrew and took deep breaths, and together we found peace. He had gotten pretty worked up in all the hullabaloo as well.

Chris called back once again, having decided that I should NOT bring the loaner car back into Mexico. We would need to acquire Mexican insurance for it, and we weren't quite sure how the dealership would feel about their car leaving the country. Instead, I would go pick Jacob up from school, hang out for a few hours, and then meet Chris at the dealership to turn the car back in. He would drive us home from there.

So I had a plan. I just needed to call the consulate driver to cancel Jacob's pickup and then get to the school before the consulate shuttle, so that Jacob didn't get confused about where he should be going. It was 2 p.m., school let out at 2:05, and I was 10 miles away. But that was okay, because Jacob would be at the after school program. I just needed to call the driver.

I scrolled through the numbers in my consulate issued emergency phone until I found the number for the driver. I pushed send, and a woman came on the phone speaking to me in Spanish saying something to the effect that my call could not be completed as dialed. And then the phone beeped at me that the battery was critical. Of course, the battery was low in my pre-programmed emergency issued phone. That's how I roll.

I tried the number three more times and then decided that, indeed, I must be dialing it wrong. So I got out my Android phone, and scrolled through my emails until I landed on the one labeled "driver's numbers." As I was comparing the number in the email to the number in the emergency phone, the Android phone beeped at me that it's battery, too, was critical. I rummaged through my purse looking for a pen to jot down the number, but of course, there was no pen to be found. It was not a good time for me to try to memorize a 10 digit number plus the country code. I think it took me four times before I finally got the right combination, and I heard the glorious sound of ringing instead of the annoying drone of that woman telling me I'd gotten it wrong.

I canceled Jacob's pick up at last and then raced off to the school. Jacob, Andrew and I spent the afternoon perusing the library and playing and eating at Chick-Fil-A before we met Chris. Benjy's play date ended up being 8 hours long, but luckily his hostess was and is awesome. We all made it home safely, even if we did test the maximum capacity of Chris's tiny car.

By this point you're probably wondering where the flat tires come into play. Well, the next day while I was happily playing outside with the boys in our fabulous patio/yard/fortress, my phone rang. (I'd recharged it). It was the dealership giving me good and bad news again. The good news was that the part had arrived, and they could have my car fixed and returned to me by the next day. The bad news was that two of my tires had nails puncturing the sidewalls and therefore could not be patched and would have to be replaced--immediately. They could not even do a road test to check the power steering until the tires were replaced. It just wasn't safe.

It's amazing that I had been driving around completely unaware for God-only-knows how many days with two tires ready to blow and steering ready to lock up. Despite my day of unfortunate events that was Tuesday and the lightness of my wallet from my recent tire purchase, I was blessed that things hadn't gone a lot worse. They certainly could have.

And that brings me to Jacob. Saturday he lost another tooth, and as I was admiring his jack-o-lantern like grin, I couldn't help but remember the two other flat tire incidents of the past year and how they had both occurred the same day that he lost a tooth. So his tooth-losing timing wasn't quite perfect this time, but it certainly is an odd coincidence. I certainly hope this trend does not continue. I'd really like to spend my money on something other than new tires.