The Jack Car Curse continues.

Today my friend Jason offered to let me borrow his car for the weekend. The one hitch was that I had to get to his house to do it which is in the opposite direction my usual ride home heads. My co-worker pal, Clark, drives right by Jason's so he offered to drop me off on his way home. I would get the car and return to work to make up the time I missed being out of the office.

That was....until I got near his car.

Actually, this was his wife's car, which he is not all too familiar with all the bells and whistles on her BWM. We got out to the car and noticed a flat tire. Keep in mind that it was a bright, sunny and humid Florida afternoon in the low 90's. The idea of changing a tire in this lovely weather seems sooooo appealing.

Since Clark knew little about his wife's can and I knew even less we spent five minuets stumbling around in the trunk locating the tire and jack. I had grabbed the car's manual to help us clueless mechanics.

The jack was held on with a wing nut which was apparently tightened in the BMW factory with a pneumatic drill. Clark tried. I tried. Both of us grunted, groaned and slammed our knuckles into the immovable jack trying to get it loosened.We both realized that a tool of some kind would have made this much easier. Finally, Clark was able to get it loosened and was lifting the car off the ground.

"OK," Said Clark kneeling at the tire "Where the lug wrench?"

I searched the trunk. No sign of it. Clark got up and looked through the trunk. No luck. As CLark began cursing the Dutch auto designers I read the manual. It was something of a "V-8 Moment".

"Clark, look up." I pointed to an innocuous plastic lid embedded in the underside of the turnk lid. I unsnapped the catches and opened the TOOL BOX. Inside, we not only found the lug wrench but a shiny, unused wrench which might have come in useful 15 minuets earlier.

I began cursing the Dutch auto designers.

The tire was mounted and secured quickly and Clark began lowering the car. As it put its weight on the spare tire it continued lower and lower. Not completely flat but close enough to make a ride to the other side of town impossible. We threw everything in the trunk and limped across the street to the nearest gas station. However, as Clark held the air hose to the tire for two....three....four minuets there was no perceptible increase in its size. It was not holding the air; apparently, the flat was also bad.

30 minuets later, now almost 90 minuets since we first walked out the door of our office, a AAA tow truck arrived to bring the car to a tire shop and Clark's wife to bring me to Jason's.

During Clark's tirade against BMW he talked about how he had his eye on trading up from the BMW to a Range Rover. He stopped for a moment. Looked at the flat tire....looked at me and said,

"YOU get NOWHERE near the Range Rover!"