When Bad is Good

 I walked out of work, got in my car and started to back out.  Something didn't feel right, so I pulled back into my parking space and got out of my car to look.  There it was.  My front driver's side tire was flat, and I mean flat-to-the ground flat. I had just finished my last shift before a four-day holiday and I was anxious to get home.  Plus it was freezing outside.  This is not what I planned to be doing right now.  What bad luck! 

I popped the trunk to look for my spare.  As I gazed down at the jack sitting on top of my spare tire, I realized it would need some assembly to be functional, and I had absolutely no idea how to put it together.  As I stood there freezing I decided I needed some help.  I called my husband, but he didn't answer.  I pulled up GPS to see if any of my grown sons happened to be nearby.  My screen showed one son only half a mile away.  Unfortunately, he didn't answer either.  Hmmm, more bad luck.  I called both my husband and son several more times.  Still no answer.  I crawled into the front seat of my car and turned on the engine and air to get warm and think.  Maybe someone would come along and help me.  But no one did.  More bad luck.  

Just as I was contemplating trying to figure out how to assemble the jack pieces my husband finally called me back (followed shortly by my son).  Yay, I was saved!   My husband assured me that he could be there in 15 minutes, and would bring his portable compressor to blow up the tire and get me to the tire store.  While I waited, I did the only logical thing any woman would do.... I walked across the street to Kneaders and ordered a chocolate peppermint brownie. 

Soon my husband arrived on his white stallion (or rather in his white car), inflated my tire, then rode off into the sunset (or rather, followed me to the tire store).  I was so grateful for his rescue!  The man behind the counter at the tire store went out to look at my tire, then came in to inform us that my tires were bald and needed to be replaced.  Yes, all four of them.  My husband followed him back out to confirm, and agreed, they were bald.  How had we not noticed?  

And so it was, on the last day before a four-day holiday, that I spent over $700 dollars on tires on my way home from work.  Would you say that was bad?  So would I, unless you know the rest of the story...

As it turns out, I had plans to drive 75 miles north the next day to see my parents and sisters, all freeway driving.  There was also a large storm predicted for the next day, which was estimated to last several days.  

What if my tire had not gone flat in the parking lot? In the safe, dry, no traffic parking lot with my husband 15 minutes away, and the tire store even closer?  What if my tire had gone flat on the freeway while I was going 70+ miles per hour?  What if I had not been able to control my car?  What if I had been able to control my car and get off to the side of the road?  I would have been on the edge of the freeway, with very little space between me and oncoming traffic, in a storm, with no idea how to change my own tire.  Now that would have been bad.  

So really, getting a flat tire in a dry and quiet parking lot was a good thing, because it prevented something much more distressing and dangerous.

Sometimes, what initially seems like bad luck can really be good luck. It depends on how you look at it.  Sometimes we just have to see past what is bad, to see what is good.