Garage Sale Finds #2

So this was last week and I was trying to decide whether or not to go. Jeff told me not to go, because he was worried I wouldn't get back in time for him to leave to the Alabama/LSU game. I was going to be stuck at home all day with the kids without a car, so I thought it would be best if I got up early and got out of the house for a bit. I hadn't found anything at the first few garage sales, then I found a great sale. I got these black winter shoes for Cheyenne:

They aren't my favorite, but they will do and she needed some black shoes. They were also $2, which is a little much, especially since I don't LOVE them, but I got them anyway. They also had two cute Dora books, one that was "lift the flap" style, which kids love:

Those were 50 cents for the lift the flap one and 25 cents for the other one. My favorite purchase of the day was these boots:

I think they are pretty cute and they are supposedly real leather, which I don't really care about that kind of thing, but I guess that means they will last longer. They were only $3. Everything was going great and I had 4 or 5 more sales to hit before I headed home. I was on my way to one in downtown Athens and there was a cop sitting in the middle of the road that I had to drive around. There was tons of open space with yellow curbs, but since the cop was right there, I decided I better park legally. I went to flip the car around and thought I could make it, but I hit the curb. I swear I was only going like 7 miles an hour. I was surprised at how loud the thud was when I hit it, but I pulled up to the curb to park and got out.

I headed in to the garage sale, but decided I should probably look at the tire to be sure it was okay. I looked at it and noticed there was a loud hissing noise and a huge hole on the side of the tire and I watched it completely deflate in about 30 seconds. The first thing I thought about was, "oh crap, Jeff is supposed to leave for the game in about an hour and a half, he is going to be so mad!" My mind started racing and I couldn't think of what you were supposed to do. I thought, how am I going to get this car to a mechanic? I remembered we have state farm and so we get free towing on our policy, but I imagined that would take forever.

I suddenly remembered the cop and thought he could help, so I sprinted over to him where he was writing a ticket for a truck parked against a yellow curb. This annoyed me because they were obviously just stopping for the garage sale, which is generally no more than a 10-15 minute stop. It was a game day, but we were more than 3-4 miles from the stadium and the game was in the afternoon and it was like 8:30 am. I said, "excuse me." and he didn't even look up and said, "uh huh." I said I just got a hole in my tire do you know of anywhere near that I could go. He stopped and looked at me, like why would I care? Then said, "there is such and such place downtown." then went back to writing the ticket. I realized he was going to be no help so I went back to the car and then remembered, Oh! I have a spare tire in the trunk. So I got out all the stuff and for the life of me could not remember how in the world I was supposed to change it. So I ran back over to the cop and asked him if he could help me change it. He said, "I don't have time today because it is game day." and continued writing the tickets.

So I ran in to the garage sale and asked if there was anyone there who could help me and the lady like yells to all the people at the g-sale, "is there anyone here who can help her change her tire?" There was a man and his wife leaving and he said he could help. I showed him where my car was and he helped me change it, I offered to give him $5 (that is all I had on me) and he wouldn't take it. So I snuck it in his pocket. Once we were doing it, it was so easy and I could have done it myself, but I just had no idea where to start. His wife went to get his truck and his was the truck the cop was writing a ticket for and it was a $50 parking ticket. I felt so bad, because it was obvious this man and his wife were very low income. Luckily, it wasn't because of me they got the ticket, but I just felt bad that they were being good samaritans and then had to have a parking ticket as a reward.

I drove slowly to our Tires Plus by our house, where we get all of our car repairs done. They had put our other tires on before so they had the same exact tire (yes the tire was very new that I put a hole in!). They got it on in about 15 minutes and about $110 later, I was home and Jeff was able to leave for his game in time. Thanks to the tire incident it turned out to be an expensive garage sale day! Just imagine how much $110 could buy me at g-sales!!! I guess those boots may not have been such a great deal after all! Boo... well, I am grateful that we have an emergency fund just for things like that.