Tales of Stupidity

Monday, January 25, 2010

On Thursday night, the warnings blared on my dashboard: Tire Pressure Too Low!
I swung into the gas station to check it out. Crouched in the dark, I checked the pressure, down to about 25psi. Feeding 4 quarters into the air machine got me something like 2 minutes of air, but it didn't seem to really make any difference. I slowly drove the remaining 3 blocks home. Since I was off to LA for the weekend, I figured I'd just obsess about it for the next 3 days and deal with it on Monday.

This morning. Once again, crouched by the side of my car using up all my quarters to inflate the tires. 10 minutes went by. Then 20 minutes. My hand was cramping from holding the air hose and my ankles were buckling. Every time I checked the pressure, no change. In fact, it seemed like the pressure was getting lower. There had to be a leak. This, I thought, is going to be a long, bad day dealing with car dealers and roadside maintenance and the like.

Hmm.

What is this lever on the air hose? I pressed it.

Oh. Air is now flowing into the tire...

For the last 20 minutes I have been holding the air hose to the tire, and bleeding the air out of the tire.

Duh.

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