Hello tire

(3 minute read)

My oh my

            I was standing in our bedroom doorway in my skivvies and had a tire hanging on my arm.  I had no idea why.

            For a long time in my life when I was first awakened, I could appear to be perfectly awake yet still be sound asleep.  It was possible for me to carry on a perfectly reasonable conversation and have zero recollection later on when I actually woke up.  This may have been caused from when at an early age I would get up at 4:00 a.m. to throw my paper route, then go back to bed for a couple of hours before I got up to go to school.  Regardless that little quirk stayed with me into adulthood.

            When I was in the Army this caused me some personal difficulty when I was overseas.  When on duty I would often be up all day of a 24 hour shift since I was the crew chief.  A lot of us were day sleepers because of our shift work.  When I woke up I had the habit of checking my wallet to see if any money was missing because guys would sometimes borrow money from me and I would have no recollection of the transaction.  On payday all I could do is hope that whoever had borrowed money from me would pay me back.  Fortunately, I never got stiffed.  More importantly my quirk was never discovered by anyone!

            In later years whenever my older brother Pat would call me up early in the morning or late at night he would question me repeatedly to make sure that I was awake since he knew of my quirk.  Somehow, he thought that in conversation he could trick me into revealing that I was actually not cognizant.  I have to admit that I did have some fun with that when it was convenient.

            Anyway, back to my service story.

            When I was stationed in Olathe, Kansas I was living off base.  I had gotten married not long after basic training.  I still had to keep up a bed in the barracks though.  My first wife, Leanne, and I were renting a small place in the city.  It was an old house that had been cut up into three different apartments.  We started off living in one of the downstairs apartments. 

            We heard a knock at the door.  I answered.  The way the apartment was set up the front door was visible from the bedroom.  Leanne could see and hear that I was talking with Wayne, a friend of ours.  We both had VWs.  He was trading his in and was giving me one of his good tires.  I should mention that she was aware of my affliction.

            Wayne left.  I walked back to the bedroom.  Standing in the doorway to our bedroom is when I actually woke up.  I had a tire hanging from the crock of my arm.  I looked at Leanne.  She looked at me.  I looked down at the tire.  I’m probably lucky that my mind didn’t snap trying to figure out what bizarre set of circumstances led me to be standing in our bedroom doorway with a tire hanging from my arm. 

            I studied the tire for what seemed like an interminable length of time before setting it down beside the door.  Then I patted the top with my hand.  I was trying for a ‘yep there you go tire’ gesture.  Then I looked back at Leanne, still not saying anything.  So, I just went over and climbed back into bed.  As we lay there, she finally said, “Would you like to know where the tire came from?”

“Oh my god, yes!”