After the cooling off period

Here I am, shamefaced over my outburst (well, maybe not shamefaced--it was a very satisfying post) or at least here to soften it a bit round the edges. Mellowing, I am mellowing about the experience. First, there was the next morning. Where I retell my woeful tale to my sleeping boyfriend, who reasonably says, why don't you drop the tire off across the street? (There really is a tire place almost directly across the street. Actually, come to think of it, there are two places.) To which I reply, they're not open yet. And then he says, well, leave a note. At which point, feeling badgered, I snap, I don't have time (which was true) I'm going to be late (true also). Of course, these are standard answers probably heard out of every veterinary student's mouth every morning when life throws them unexpected glitches. I'm beginning to seriously wonder what I'll be like once this whole experience is behind me. Because (to veer off track for a moment) you really have NO time. Your parents say, we're coming to visit. Can you go out to dinner? Your reply is: I don't know. And you don't; it's not some half assed excuse. You might get out at 5:00 (today) or 7:30 (Tuesday). You certainly won't be leaving the hospital except for time off in the cafeteria for good behavior. Meet someone for lunch? Nope, you only get lunch on the edges, the hyena of the veterinary savannah. It's unlike most other daily routines I can ever think of experiencing. But, as usual, I digress. Where were we? Oh yes, snapping and being late. So, feeling slightly annoyed at the lack of time, my snappishness and my (unintentionally?) implied tire fixing scheduling inadequacy, I stomp off to school.

Now: I'm coming home that night, feeling responsible. I stop by the tire place to find out when they open in the morning. Driving home, I meet my boyfriend in the driveway (more common these days than other normal places, like the house. He's working two jobs and if we thought we never saw each other when I was studying for exams, boy we were silly) who suggests, with a twinkle, that I visit a specific tire place (remember, there are two). Can you guess? Who looks in their way back when getting in a station wagon? That's right. My boyfriend had actually found my car in the parking lot at school (he works at the school, so this isn't as wacky as it could be), took my tire out and took it to one of the places across the street. I think if you subtract that from the original equation, you end up reducing the amount of true suckiness by a bunch. You might even get negative true suckiness.

And as for this tire thing, I give up. I just want to say that today, I watched them put that tire back on my car with an air compressor wrench. Ouch.