The Tire Saga

Yet another wonderful summer day: Picnic in the park with the family (nicoise salad, grill roasted chicken and sausages, spinach ricotta pie, melons with mint and blueberry pie for dessert). Played at the duck pond, bocce after dinner put the kid to sleep, catch up on work - you all know the drill. All-in-all a lovely Vancouver day.

Tuesday morning I've got some shop time to mount the new Pilot Powers onto the bike so I drive over to my parents place to pick up these fantastic new tires that are sitting on the garage floor.

As I said, it's been a busy day so I don't get to this last minute pick up until midnight. I pull into the driveway - it’s a beautiful evening. The wisteria is in full bloom and the lilac is in its summer glory. Stars are out and the moon is stunning. I pull out the tires and put them into the trunk of the car. I've got my golf clubs and baby stroller in the

boot so I’ve got to pull everything out and re-jigger so that everything fits nice and comfy. My sis is still up so we sit for a nice cup of tea before I head out. The tea is delicious as always and I'm starting to get a little weary so I head out and make my way home. It's such a beautiful night, I become a little nostalgic for my childhood in this neighbourhood - these kind of summer nights around here were such a joy, man I really love this neighbourhood. I'm having such a good time reminiscing that I pull out an oldy-but-a-goody – Mark Morrison “Return of the Mac” is in full rotation on the ipod. The day couldn’t have gone much better.

I pull into my garage all set for a motorcycle-centric day tomorrow.

Tues morning – pull the battery off the charging bench. Pop it into the bike – ROAR – starts like a charm. Sounds good.

Next step – Karen needs to drive the car down to the shop with the tires. Of course she has some additional errands to run and has to put a box into the trunk . No worries, I packed so masterfully last night that there’s plenty of space.

Pop goes the trunk and there’s lots of space for the box. Turns out there’s more space than I thought because there are no tires to be seen. What the *!^%!?

Ok quick call home – hope Faiza hasn’t gone to work yet.

Phone - Ring, Ring

Rizwan – “Hello, Faiza”

Faiza – “Hi Bhaiya”

Rizwan – “ Ahhhh – are there some tires sitting in the driveway?”

Faiza – “What are you talking about?”

Rizwan – “I’m missing my new motorcycle tires.”

Faiza – “I’ll go look”

Rizwan – pensively waits

Faiza – “yup. They’re sitting in the middle of the driveway.”

Rizwan –“ Sweeeeet!” ( huge sigh of relief)

Faiza – “how did you forget them?”

Rizwan –“ i didn’t forget anything. I meant to leave them there. They needed to breathe before they get installed.”

Faiza – “I see”

Rizwan –“At this point they’ve breathed enough so it would be nice if you brought them inside. I’ll be over to pick them up in a few.”

Faiza – “OK” (she’s used to these kind of things happening).

At this point I dispatch Karen off to pick up the tires (she’s supe

r excited) and I go off to get insurance for the bike. This all gets co-ordinated via my Treo Pro and the crisis is averted with the exception of a couple of annoyed girls – but let’s be real – at this point they’re used to these happy little unexpected adventures.

Just 1 hour later than we expected and the bike is in the shop and everything is back on track. Not too shabby.