Sometimes destiny surprises you. And tonight, destiny wanted me to go to Bento's Auto Repair. Ok maybe that's a little dramatic, but it was just sort of an interesting chain of events where everything fell perfectly into place, and since this story features my trusty Cube, I thought I should share.

It's Victoria Day and my husband Kristofer and I were just over at his brothers' house for dinner. I had noticed earlier in the day that my tire pressure was low, so I thought maybe the way home would be a good time to pop by the gas station to fill 'em all up before the start of the week. We pulled into the gas station, but there were two tow trucks parked right in front of the air-fill-y station so i kind of pulled up beside and then Kristofer and I jumped out of the car to see if they were using the air, or if we might convince them to move so we could use it quickly and get home.

As soon as we jumped out though I saw that the tire was almost completely flat. Boo. One of the tow truck drivers quickly offered to move his vehicle so we could access the air pump, which was pretty nice. I had been parked parallel to the two trucks, and once the nice-guy-truck-driver moved, I just made a little weird manoeuvre to get the front tire as close to the air pump as possible. By the time i did this, Niceguy had parked his truck elsewhere and came back over to where we were filling up to talk to his buddy. And because of the way i had awkwardly adjusted the placement of my car, the flat tire was now turned outward as if it was on display, so we could see it very clearly. There it was; a shiny screw wedged painfully in the flat tire. So my brain starts to try to calculate all the stress it will cost me to fix this... "Do I need a whole new tire?", "How much is THAT going to cost", "Nothing is going to be open today...",  "Can I drive on this?" "Will it be flat again in the morning?" "Will I have time to drop the car off tomorrow before work?" "Will I need an appointment?" "How long will it take?" on and on my brain went..

Luckily, it just so happened that when I called Kristofer over to see the thorn in my paw, he exclaimed "Damn, there's a screw in there!" And Niceguy was still within earshot, and came over to have a look-see. He told us that Bento's just across the bridge at Lansdowne and Dundas would definitely be open RIGHT NOW and we should go over there and just get it all taken care of because the tire would likely be flat again shortly. So we drove to Bento's and explained the problem to the mechanic. With confused little Motown still inside and fireworks going off all around us, he (at nascar speed) jacked up the car, pulled off the wounded limb, yanked out the  screw, (not even flinching at the crazy hiss of air escaping while kristofer and I fought the urge to dive for cover) did a bunch of magic and before I knew it I was a mere $20 poorer, sitting at home sipping green tea and typing away.

I know it doesn't seem very exciting but everything had to be perfect for this series of events to unfold the way they did. If I had been a few minutes later Niceguy might not have been there, or if he hadn't parked right in front of the air pump, he wouldn't have heard us mention the screw in the tire. Also if he hadn't parked in front of the air pump i wouldn't have moved my car with the tire ending up awkwardly twisted, and I almost certainly wouldn't have even seen the screw. Maybe the whole thing would have popped later on the highway, or maybe I have spent hours tomorrow trying to get to a dealership and take time off work and wait in line while other cars get worked on.. So thanks Universe. I am not taking these minutes for granted.