New Wheels

Maybe you already caught the drama on Facebook about our lousy Valentine's Day.  That would be the day that I was on my way to pick up Robin from work (so we could go out for sushi, which I suspected but was going to be a surprise from Robin for V-Day) when I met the lane-wide, car-eating pothole in front of the cemetery. It ate both curb-side tires leaving me with a flat, a bent rim, and two hub caps on the road to retrieve.

Granted, I didn't know about the flat. I first saw the hubcaps rolling in the rear view mirror, so I turned at the next street, parked, and got out to inspect the tires before walking back to retrieve the hub caps.  Having discovered the flat, Abi and I walked home - picking up the caps on the way - so I could try and messenger Robin to let him know we would not be picking him up! He doesn't have a phone number to call at work, and we don't have cell phones. Of course, he was no longer on-line. I'd hoped he might have wi-fi access and be on his tablet while waiting. Instead I had to wait 45 minutes for him to finally look for us at home!  He bused to the car with the intention of putting on the spare, but the bent rim made it difficult, so he had to drive the car home as is.
Bad bad day.
And no chocolate.
Not even since. Ahem. Robin!

Yesterday the car was fixed - new rim (maybe two, I can't recall, but the front was a little bent too) and four new tires.
Wish I could say the "new wheels" was more exciting.  Good thing it's tax-return season!
And I would like to add that I had just driven past that pothole the previous morning, so I knew it was there.  It was, however, much, much smaller the day before. As I shifted to the edge of the lane to avoid what I expected was a small pothole curbside, I ended up catching it worse because now the pothole was gigantic. No, seriously, lane-wide and deep. As we walked past I saw a few more hubcaps on the sidewalk and several more cars get caught.  I called the city to report it and amazingly I was the first to do so. Apparently people don't think to report them? Because I can't imagine I'm the first to have hit it that badly - the scattered hubcaps said otherwise.

I haven't been back (no car) to check on it, but I hope they fixed it. It's a major road. I am surprised it was allowed to get that bad, but if noone reported it I suppose the city can't know of every pothole, especially one that seemed rather innocent the previous day - as far as potholes go.  I imagine there were quite a few car-swallowing holes across the region because of the above-zero weather followed by freezing temperatures.