“Man, that’s backward’s walkin! Yesterday talkin”!”

I don’t know what that means, but that’s what the fat man was yelling as I sat down next to him, leaving a few buffer seats between us of course. He was angry because they were taking too long to change the tires on his Volkswagen. On top of that, he had just wrapped up a conversation with another customer about his diabetes and how the doctors had to remove his kidneys; another good reason to be angry. The manager was angry because he was getting yelled at and there was no reasoning with the man with no kidneys. The workers were angry because they were getting yelled at too, so they yelled at the manager and he yelled right back. I sat there reading “Cat Fancy,” and waiting for everyone to stop yelling and start working on my car.

On Saturday afternoon I had discovered my car had a flat tire. All I had wanted to do was go to IHOP and eat pancakes until my hangover subsided, but I had a flat tire. I still went to IHOP and ate pancakes until my hangover subsided, but I had to ride in a friend’s car and take care of mine later. On Monday, the spare tire blew out on my way to the tire shop. Naturally.

The tow truck took more than an hour to pick me up from the gas station that my car had barely made it to. The driver was nice enough to let me ride with him the rest of the way to the shop, and we made awkward conversation in the heavy traffic. It wasn’t too long until he turned down the Clay Aiken and started telling me about his business of bailing people out of situations like mine. I told him I should take his card because I don’t own any tools and I promised to enter him in a free-lunch raffle or two.

The tiny shop parking lot could barely accommodate the tow truck, but the driver got my car down safely anyway. I walked inside the office and listened to the diabetes conversation while waiting to talk to an employee. Right as I was learning about weight loss as a result of kidney failure, the manager showed up to help me. He said they had tires that would fit my car and that he would take care of it for me if I took care of him. Then he winked at me.

On the waiting room television, New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was on every channel. My regularly scheduled programming was being overwhelmed by the prostitution scandal. Some people were so shocked that they refused to comment. The fat man with no kidneys was also shocked, for a different reason, and he had no problem commenting on the workers’ incompetence. He started using crazy rhyming slang, that I didn’t understand, to communicate his frustration.

“That’s backwards walkin’! Yesterday talkin’! It don’t make no damn sense!” he yelled to no one in particular. I wasn’t sympathetic because my day had sucked equally, minus the diabetes. When they finally finished with his car, he paraded out the door with a loud, “never coming back to this ridiculous place.” He had been reading a better magazine than I was so I grabbed it from his chair. Better Homes and Gardens, if you were wondering.

His typhoon of rage had left the shop in shambles in its wake. The manager was arguing with the workers and the workers were threatening to quit. Meanwhile my car was up on a jack with the bad tire off, but no good tire in sight. This was a bad time for a mutiny.

Like any good captain, the wily manager calmed the uprising in the interest of customer satisfaction. He looked like he could have gone on yelling at people all day, but it was almost closing time and everyone wanted to go home. My car got the treatment it deserved and I was on my way, but not before a few more nuggets of bad news. “You need a new spare tire. Get it from a dealer for $120 or go to a junkyard.” “One of your lug nuts is stripped. Need to replace that.” “Sir, you can’t drink that in here.”

“This $35 refurbished tire had better be worth it,” I thought as I left the shop with their copy of Cat Fancy. I had already read that Better Homes and Gardens.