Fate S.O.C.K.S. It To Me...

My Summer Of Compensatory Knitting Socialization (S.O.C.K.S.) Program has hit yet another snag in its overall implementation.  This time the problem is not allergy-related, although I must admit to being a little on the congested side today.  Still...that wasn't going to be enough to hold me back.  I'd already taken a sick day and didn't feel that I'd meet the program graduation requirements if I took another so soon.  

(Just because I invented the program, and pretty much control the final grades [which are really just figments of my overactive imagination anyway] doesn't mean I'm not accountable, right?)

This time, though, we have a new contender for the right to claim the title of Greatest Of Annoying Interferences.  Those of you who have missed my stories of vehicular mishap, please take note.  This one's for you.

Towards the end of July, I had an oil change done at the dealership and partook of their complementary vehicle inspection just for snorts and giggles.  They also washed my car for me as part of the service and, since that is the sort of thing that I will certainly never do, it seemed like a nice treat for the car.  When I picked up my keys, the nice little girl (a former student of mine so I can call her a little girl if I want to) said that they noticed some wear on the front tires and suggested that I think about replacing them and doing an alignment.  

I'll admit I was only half listening.  I'd only had the car for three months.  How bad could it be?  Tires, at least to my knowledge, usually hang in there for longer than three months.  For that matter, wouldn't it have been the responsibility of the salesman to mention to me that this car featured those new-fangled "disposable" tires when I bought it?  I figured I was OK for a bit.

Today, though, I received a call from the service department.  They were greatly concerned by my lack of attention to my tires and feared for my very safety.  Phrases like "in the red zone" and "maybe fifteen percent of wear left" were being thrown about all willy nilly.  Prices were quoted just like they thought I was going to actually pay for this tire replacement...

I am most certainly not.  

I shall spare you the details and not quote the conversations that have gone on today regarding just whom is really responsible for this.  (as well as my sincere attempts at keeping the nice little girl out of the middle of it all what with her being a former student and a nice kid...)  The dealership is one of many under the same ownership and my particular car came from a different lot.  The thinking at this point is that they are the ones who will be underwriting this little enterprise.  I don't care.  My only input on the matter was that they let go of the past.  Perhaps they could pull up my lengthy, unhappy and very expensive record of purchases and repairs, look it over, relive the good times, revel in the memories from happier days when I just shut up and wrote the checks...live, love, laugh, as it were.  Then use that as part of the process for letting go.  We have entered into a new stage of our relationship and it is the one where I start getting as good as I've given.  

Now, because they care so deeply about me (and, quite possibly my future contributions to the company bonuses) they are suggesting that I drive with caution.  At any moment, it seems, my poor fragile, disposable tires could just give up on life and maybe try to take me with them in the process.  Or not.  Who knows with these things, really?  

(They said the same thing about my dearly departed truck a few months ago.  Maybe the engine will keep running.  Maybe it won't.  Maybe it will explode.  Maybe a genie will pop out and grant you all your fondest wishes.  Anything is possible...you just have to believe!)

I'll be knitting at home tonight.  I shall let my depressed tires rest and think about what they want to do.  They have until Thursday to make a decision because that's the day I'm taking them back to the dealership where someone will "take a look" at them.  Their fate will be decided at that point as will that of the lamebrain who is going to be paying for this.  

I'm currently reviewing the knitting basket for appropriate WIPs to take with.  I'm thinking lace.  Not because I can really knit lace under those circumstances, mind you...

It's just that the needles are sharper.

SA