Well, we didn't have time to fix it until Saturday night. Grig had to drive the car on the measly little doughnut to work every day, and it wasn't until Saturday night that we were able to take it in.
I had heard good things about Sam's club's tire area, and so we went there with the intention of buying a new tire. Things seemed to be going pretty well, except that they quoted us over $110 dollars for one tire plus maintenance. We just wanted it fixed though, and then I remembered a tiny detail.
"Oh, yeah," I said, "also, when Grig was taking off the old tire, he accidently snapped one of the studs. Can we get a replacement one of those too?"
The salesclerk stopped abruptly. "We can't put a new tire on if any of the lugnuts or studs are missing," he said.
"What?" we asked.
"It's a liability issue," he told us.
We wanted to know if we could buy a new one and they could put it on, and they just kept telling us that they couldn't put a new tire on.
So, we left. We drove to another car place that had been very kind to us before and parked the car. We went to the front door, but it was locked. We looked at the hours sign and it said, "Saturdays by appointment only."
Great.
Grig tried to call them, but no one answered. So, we stood there for a minute, unsure of what to do. Grig kind of wanted to quit for the day and try again on Monday, but I really just wanted to get it taken care of that night.
We said a prayer. We asked Heavenly Father to lead us to somewhere where we could get the tire fixed at a good price.
We began to drive. We passed a few car-type places, but they didn't feel right. Then we saw a Les Schwab Tire store on one side of the road. We decided to see if they were open. While I got Kevin out of the car, Grig ran to the front door and checked. It was unlocked. He yelled that he was going to go in and start talking to them, and I nodded. As I passed the front doors to enter, I noticed that the sign said on Saturdays that they were open until 5. It was already almost 5:30 p.m. Confused, I entered to see them energetically talking to Grig.
He was explaining our situation, and they told him that they could fix that right up for us. We asked for a price quote, and the lady at the counter said, "Well, usually it's thirteen fifty, but since you are first time customers, we'll just do it for free."
Grig and I were blown away. We both thought that she meant 1,350 at first, but even when we realized what she was actually saying, we were having a hard time comprehending it. They were offering to just fix our flat! We wouldn't even have to buy a new tire!
However, a few minutes later, the manager reappeared and said, "So, this is what we found in your tire." He held up a half of a razor blade. He then explained that the razor had cut the threads on our tire so that they couldn't patch up the hole, but that they could offer us a slightly used tire instead for about $35 and $45 total for maintenance. We quickly agreed.
They switched our tire in about ten minutes and we were ready to go. We apologized for coming in after hours, and the lady smiled, shrugged, and said, "We were still here. We understand how hard it is to have a flat tire. We were glad to help."
We were extremely impressed and grateful for their aid. We were also very grateful to Heavenly Father for leading us there. We save about $65 by going there instead of Sam's Club. I later told Grig that I felt that his snapping the stud might have been a blessing in disguise because it kept us from spending too much money.
As we left, Grig made the comment, "Darn it, now they've made me want to be loyal to them."
We still need to get our stud fixed, but they told us that they could do that on Monday for around $25.
We made sure that we stopped and thanked Heavenly Father for the miracle. He had been very kind to us. My aunt later commented that it was a blessing of paying tithing.
I think she's completely correct.
Also, exciting news!
Kevin finally cut his first tooth. It's his upper left central tooth. Which is a little unusual, but when did Kevin ever doing anything in the typical manner? It started coming out Saturday night, but was definitely out by Sunday afternoon.
About time.
So glad that worked out and you were led where they could help you for a reasonable cost (and glad for his tooth to finally break through!).
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