My car hurt its foot

Yesterday morning, I was on my way to work, whippin’ down the highway, when BAM, BING, I ran over something with my rear right tire. It’s 6:30 am, so it’s pitch dark.

Right away, the wheel made a weird noise, so I pulled over (from the far left lane, of course). I get out, look at the tire. Nothing. I kneel and look under the car… Nothing. Let’s not forget it’s pitch dark, so it’s not like I can see anything, really. Back to the tire… woops, now I can see it’s flat.

I don’t have the cell phone, and did I mention it was dark? I’ve never changed a tire in my life – though I think I have the theory – so I thought, screw that, I’m going back home.

So I did, slowly, making a weird wump, wump, wump noise, thinking that since the tire went flat right away, it was probably damaged beyond repair, I couldn’t really make it that much worse. Luckily, I was about 10 minutes away from home. Warp10 hadn’t left yet, so I went to work with him.

That evening, he cheerfully says: “I’ll check the tire.” He came back in a good, what? 2 minutes later, and asked me to come and take a look at the tire…

I don’t know what I hit, but it certainly wasn’t a rock!

Yes, you’re looking at the inside of the rim!

Whatever I hit went through the tire and exploded the rim. It turns out the tire might be salvagable, but the rim’s kaput!

I have to admit it scared me quite a bit; I really didn’t see it coming. Luckily, since it was the back tire, I didn’t lose control or anything. The only thing that suffered was the rim and my heart!

What’s that? ❓

I wish I knew! Yesterday, I was totally paranoid when driving on that section of the road…