Flat!

What the holy hell? Driving at 70 MPH on the highway to work earlier, rear passenger tire just WENT! Blammo!

My first instinct was to panic and just accelerate into oncoming traffic causing a FIERY CRASH! A cooler head prevailed, and I pulled over. Blow out! I started the short trek to get close enough to see the mile marker, squinted and saw "49." Turned around, started trudging back to my car to get ready to call AAA (because, if you have even a cursory knowledge of me, I am way too much of a shirt-lifting pansy mama's butterboy to have the gifts required to change a tire), when the ODOT HelpWagonVan thing was already pulling up! Out hopped Dennis, who ruled and was ready to pop the spare on, after telling me at length about the vagaries of tire walls! I nodded along, pretending I wasn't thinking about my flash drive full of ill-gotten tunes in my pocket the whole time!

He was an ANGEL OF THE HIGHWAYS.

Also, he answered my question I posted about months and months back re: the spot on I-75 at exit 44 where EVERY dadblasted day there is at least one car dead (today, eg, there were two). Most times, says Dennis, it's people who have run out of gas. The slow incline sets the gas way back in the tank, people then don't realize they are on such a grade and that's it. Sorta anti-climactic.

Unless, sizing me up as a wuss, he didn't want to tell me the truth [a dark energy that goes back to ancient Native American rituals of a type discussed in, I dunno, Pet Sematary] because I would cower and start to cry?