What destroyed my wife’s tire

My wife and I already had a busy weekend planned. Not the fun kind of busy. More the cleaning, weeding, more school supply shopping, grocery shopping, and getting the house ready for our little boy's 2 year birthday party next weekend kind of busy. Friday night something happened that added to our errands.

She was driving back from a store when, on a dark road, some idiot teenager dressed in black was riding his bicycle down the center yellow line of the road straight at her. No light, no reflectors. So he appeared out of nowhere and she swerved to make sure she wouldn't hit him. That swerve (more like that idiot teenager) cost us hundreds of dollars and part of my next day sitting at a tire shop. She hit her back tire against a curb and didn't think much of it at the time. But less than a mile later as she pulled into our driveway she felt the tire go flat.

Check out these pics. Three separate punctures.

To show how big they were, here's some perspective.

When it was light out in the morning I took my 12 year old son out with me to jack up the car and put on the spare. I wanted him to see how this was done because it's getting more and more rare for people to know how to change a tire. In part because tires today are made so much better than they used to be they simply don't go flat as often as they used to. Then I took it over to Goodyear in Flemington and got her new tires.

My son was kind of fascinated to see how tires actually stay on a car. Even if he never needs to change one, it's good to know the mechanics. When I really think about it, I only changed tires three times in my whole life. Like I said they're being built better than the tires our dads and granddads had. Once when I was 18. Once when I was 22 and had a blowout at highway speed. And all these years later on Saturday morning. Which brings me to my question. There are certain automotive lost arts. Changing a tire is one of them. The two others I can think of are driving a stick shift and parallel parking. When's the last time you've done these? Even if you know how, which many don't these days, it may have been quite awhile. Take our poll below.