Another flat tire!

There are things in life we're never ready for; winning the loto, dying or having a flat tire. Less than 300 yards after leaving home yesterday, I noticed that something was wrong with my car and pretty soon I realized that I must have had a flat.

Since I was in the middle of an hairpin turn I pulled over safely enough in front of the next available driveway and proceeded to change the wheel that had caught an ubiquitous construction screw. In the meanwhile two young Latinos stopped by and alarmed by my frailty, very kindly asked if we needed help.

I politely refused, but for the life of me couldn't find all the accessories needed to remove the wheel. This is the second time this happens with that car and while I knew the missing jack handle (#3 on the drawing) was hidden somewhere, I couldn't remember where exactly.

I opened the front hood (?) without any result and while I was frenetically thumbing through the owner's manual, it suddenly dawned on me that this particular tool was hidden under a panel located to the left of the spare wheel well.

When I finally removed the bad wheel and installed the limited service spare tire I saw that it needed some air, so I returned home, gave it lots of psi and drove over to the tire shop.

That's when I got thinking that a regular emergency rehearsal to remember where everything is, along with a check of the spare tire inflation, might not be such a bad idea in the future, right?