Was That The Tire?

Years ago when Max & I were younger, we had a string of POS cars (piece of s**t) One in particular stands out. It was 1986, the car was a brown Satellite from the late 60'S. Max had just bought the muscle car and proudly brought it to work to show off. After our shift was over at the movie theatre, we took it out to run errands for our boss, Mr. Johnson. We had to go to a different movie theatre and pick up some more drink cups. We were circling the parking lot, Max driving, our good friend Dave rode shot-gun, and I was wedged in between them. The car made a funny noise and started lurching. We looked up in time to see the front left tire rolling across the parking lot away from us. And it kept on rolling. Max jumped out of the car, held his hands up to his head, covered his ears and started screaming, "shoot, shoot, shoot!!" Only it wasn't 'shoot' he was screaming. Dave and I just looked at each other, too speechless to say anything. Max was so mad; should we try to comfort him, or just stay out of his way? We climbed out of the car and stood around looking at each other. Max ran across the parking lot and retrieved the run-away tire. The lug nuts were all missing. It's a good thing we were driving slowly in a parking lot, and not on the freeway. Max was stomping around and swearing at the top of his lungs. We stood around and watched him have a hum-dinger of a teen tantrum. Dave leaned over and whispered to me, "I feel like such a girl, I can't help him." Sometimes it's better to stay out of the way. Not a bad motto to live by. That car caused Max many problems, or learning opportunities--depending on how you look at it ( I like to be a glass half full kinda girl.) We've learned a lot of lessons from all the crappy cars we've owned. My favorite is that a roach clip makes a fine wire clamp in a pinch.