Crazy Not Stupid
Not long after I recieved my driver's license, something similar happened to me. My first car came with a full set of snow tires on custom rims (the rims matched the custom rims the "normal" tires were on) because the previous owner of the car used it to get to whereever he and his wife went skiing. So, being a Joisey native, when it came time to put on the snow tires, I did. Only I forgot to tighten them all the way on one of the wheels. Driving with my dad in the car, we did not get too far when the one wheel started to feel odd. Pulled over, noticed that there were no lugnuts on the wheel ( I was EXTREMELY lucky the wheel didn't come off). I panicked, "What do I do! There's no auto parts store nearby! Etc." Now we were not out in the middle of nowhere, but a store that sold lugnuts was definitely not within walking distance and home was about an hour's walk away, cell phones were still bulky and expensive then, so my family did not have one, therefore mom could not have picked us up. My dad told me to calm down, told a similar joke only I didn't "get" it and was clearly not happy with him telling jokes when we were "stranded" and when it was clear I did not quite understand what he was getting at, he explained it to me. Put the three lugnuts on from the other three wheels, tightened them down good, this time, and re-tightened all the lug nuts while I was at it, and everything was fine.
I tell ya', to this day, if my dad were not with me, I probably would have tried to walk home or do something equally stupid. I really do not know if using one lugnut from each of the other wheels would have crossed my mind even after I had started walking and the initial adrenaline surge faded.
I guess that means in my youth I was stupid not crazy, my wife says that I am the opposite, though, that must happen with maturity.
Paul
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