My Ride or Die

When life throws me a blown tire, this is the person I can always count on.

I’ve spent the past two weeks at my mom’s house in Michigan, attending to a family health crisis with all hands on deck, including my amazing brother as well as my incredible partner who flew in to help support during week two. We’re still in the thick of it, so I’m keeping the details close to the vest for now, but can share that we’d reach enough of a steady(ish) state point to feel comfortable booking our return flight this past Saturday, May 16, from the place I first called home to the place I now call home (Las Vegas).

We needed to be at DTW by 8:30am ET. Our pre-ordered Uber pick up was scheduled for 7:30am, and around 7:28am, I got an alert on my Uber app that our driver was going to be a good 20+ minutes late, just as a massive early morning thunderstorm erupted. We cancelled the Uber and pivoted: my partner loaded our bags into my mom’s 2017 Lexus SUV and got behind the wheel, my mom riding shotgun so she could drive herself back after drop-off.

I slipped into the backseat with my dog daughter Gilda, who in addition to being ridiculously adorable, is also a trained and certified service animal that travels with me most of the time. I’m pretty sure her biggest gripe that morning was lamenting about the Metro Detroit suburban wildlife she would no longer have access to via the backyard views through the windows of my mom’s house.

Hark! Who goes there?

Fortunately, the thunderstorms had taken a smoke break during our drive, but about 16 minutes before we were due to pull into the departures drop-off at McNamara terminal, my mom’s tire light decided to wish us a good morning. We defaulted to, “Tire pressure probably needs to be re-balanced,” and continued along our way.

We were 12 minutes out from the airport when we heard what we hoped was “freeway noise” and changed lanes. Less than 30 seconds later, it became real, real clear that it was not.

My partner calmly eased the car to the far right shoulder (with the added protection of an underpass no less), threw on the hazards, hopped out and laid eyes on the culprit. Not a flat that comes from the random nail on the road or hitting one of the plentiful potholes decorating the Michigan freeways.

Nawwww.

This was a full-on tire BLOW OUT.

Is this noticeable?

A tire that had been on borrowed time, which turned out to expire at approximately 8:18am eastern on I-275 South and put a new timer in play: the “will we-won’t we make our flight” clock.

My first thought, for about three seconds, was: We’re SO screwed.

And then I remembered who I was with, turned to my visibly panicked mother, and said, “There is literally no one else you would want to have with you in this situation other than him.”

By the time I finished that sentence, my partner already had the suitcases out of the trunk and the spare in hand.

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Early in our relationship, when I still lived in Portland, Oregon, but was making regular visits to see my partner in Las Vegas (in what would soon become our home), he was showing me via video call a light wall in the house that wasn’t functioning properly. It’s a massive art installation of hexagonal LED panels that was already part of the home when he bought it. Located in one of the main sitting rooms, it remains one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen and it’s always a go-to conversation piece when we have guests over. He was troubleshooting the issue out loud while I watched via his smartphone tour, confident he knew the source of the malfunction and could fix it himself.

As a professional worry wart, my first response was, “Okay, well be careful… I mean, you’re not an electrician.”

Because of course my brain had already jumped to an accidental self-electrocution scenario. Look, I’ve watched a LOT of TV and movies, so perhaps a reasonable fear to have about oneself.

It was not a reasonable fear to have about him.

We got off the call. Maybe ten minutes later, my phone buzzed. He’d sent a video of the light wall, now fully operational, glowing magnificently, every panel firing perfectly (you can even set it to time with whatever music you are playing). His text caption read:

“NOT an electrician?!?”

It’s been our inside joke ever since. Every time he fixes or solves something (which is always, and everything), one of us says it.

Not an electrician.

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Back to I-275.

My partner had the blown tire off and the spare on in thirteen minutes, unscathed except for one bloody knuckle. I like to think our recent viewing of the F1 movie helped with this training, but the truth is, he’s probably been able to do such things since age eight. Or six. Or four.

Needless to say, we not only made the flight, we had time to spare (pun intended). And because he is who he is, before we boarded, my partner used that time to research the best new tires for my mom’s car, find a shop ten minutes from her house, and track down two rebates she could apply to the service, sending her all the details via text. By the time we landed in Las Vegas, my mom was at Belle Tire and getting a full new set.

I did not ask him to do this. It would also not have occurred to me to do this. He just did it, the way he does everything: thoughtfully, lovingly, completely, without being asked.

There’s no question that the tire was going to blow at some point on that particular Saturday. For days, we’ve remarked how grateful we are that it didn’t happen when my mother was alone. Had our Uber not been late, this story could have played out much differently, and much worse.

The past two weeks have been filled with highs and lows, but one thing I’ve been reminded of is this: no matter how in control you’d like to believe you are, or how prepared you try to be, at some point, shit is going to go sideways. In big ways, small ways, and everything in between. It’s not a question of if, but when. And how one shows up when it does.

And what I also know is this: in these moments, even if I forget how to put one foot front of the other, I will always get through to the other side. Because I’ve got Not an Electrician as my ride or die.

xo,
SG

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