Lancaster or bust...

...and it was a bust, literally. I was in my car with a co-worker, driving from Cypress in Orange County to Lancaster in northern LA County. At around 7:20 am, my car got a flat tire. We were in the car pool lane in rush hour traffic on the 605/91/105 interchange.
By the time we got all the way over to the emergency lane - which was on a bridge - my tire was merely a rim. We started to call my road service but LA County has a free road service that stopped to help us (there's a link to their website on the picture at the end of this post.) We had to drive forward on our rim (gasp!) as we couldn't get out of the car without risking death! Turns out my brand new Volvo bought from the dealership did not come equipped with the key to unlock the nut from the tire. The Volvo dealership located less than half a mile off the freeway (the very exit we were next to) would not bring the key to me. (Don't even get me started about the all the phone calls I made to get a "no" from them.) So I had to send the free road service away and call my roadside assistance again who had to TOW my car to the dealership (1/2 mile away- remember?)
Because Lancaster was too far away and after we had to go to Burbank airport, we could not drive on the spare and had to get a new tire. The new tire is hard to get and had to be brought in from Torrance. I got the flat at 7:20 am and was ready to drive on my new tire around 1:30pm! Needless to say, Monet and I totally missed the meeting (that we were supposed to be actively participating in) which ended at 2pm. What a long day... I will probably never buy a Volvo again as the dealerships I dealt with were SO unhelpful. Trust me, you are getting the abridged version of the story. The good news is that we ended up safe and the tow truck came just as it started raining. (Although standing by the freeway during rush hour traffic does cause a lot of dirt and debris to be all over you. Yuk!)