Last night around 3:00am, I was coming home after an evening with friends. As I was driving, I noticed my car was pulling to the right a bit. "Damn," I thought, "I'll have to get that looked at." A few miles later the car started to vibrate and make more noise; I realized that my tire was going flat. I hoped I could get home, but as I pulled onto I-405 from 520, I knew it was a hopeless cause. I pulled off under the 12th Street overpass and stepped out to inspect the damage. The tire was shredded. No goop was going to fix this.

Fortunately, I had my AAA membership number and phone number in my wallet. I called them up, and the dude was out in thirty minutes, just enough time for me to watch the episode of Good Eats I had synched to my Smartphone. (Technology wins!) Dude wheeled out his industrial sized jack, unrolled the airhose for his tools, and had my spare tire on in about three minutes. It would have taken me thirty minutes of flipping through the owner's manual just to figure out how to get the cover off the hub with the special key BMW provides.

What's more amazing is that I'm not sure we even have a AAA membership anymore. Michelle wasn't sure, and they had our old, old address. Nevertheless, they bailed me out at 3:00am in the rain on the side of the freeway, no questions asked. If we're not members now, we'll definitely rejoin.

AAA rocks.