Wiggles, No Giggles

I spent an enjoyable couple of hours at Border's Books today, buying books, a cd and dvd's. With Rebecca teaching art at the Temple today, that meant I had Rachel with me.
She knows her way around a bookstore, let me tell you. She told me I had to keep quiet when we entered the store, reminding me several times in a whispering tone during the hour and a half we were there. Of course, she violated the code of quiet a couple of times, letting out loud "no's" when I kept her from running out of my sight. And once, when I thought I caught a whiff of something, I asked her whether she had a poopie diaper and she exclaimed at the top of her lungs, "NO, I DONT HAVE A POOPIE DIAPER, I HAVE..." Before she could finish, I said, "I know, gas, okay." And she continued, "YEAH, GAS!" Well, it's good the entire store knows now.
She made out okay, with the Heffalump Halloween DVD, The Wiggles Sail Around the World and two Berenstain Bears books.
Ah, the Wiggles. They are her new passion. For the unfamilar, they are four lads from the Land Down Under who sing these catchy tunes while performing on a Faux Tv Show called Lights, Camera, Action!
It's like the Banana Splits for this generation, without so much fur. If you don't remember the Banana Splits, humor me.
Anyhow, the Wiggles have several regular featured performers including a friendly pirate named Captain Feathersword, who has a feather instead of a sword and is awash in "Ahoy ye Maties!" and other pirate phrases. I doubt he's ever made anyone walk the plank. There is also Wags the Dog, Dorothy the Dinosaur and Henry the Octopus.
I tell you this because the tunes are downright catchy. All of a sudden, I catch myself singing Wiggles tunes in idle moments instead of the classic rock and 80's tunes that used to be in that section of my brain. Hearing yourself sing, "Quack Quack Quack Quack Quack Cockle Doodle Doo" in the middle of your work cubicle can be a bit disconcerting.
What's really frightening is that we bought Rachel a DragonTales music cd as well and I noticed one of the writers was a J. Levine. I had a hunch and looked it up and it's the same Joey Levine who used to be with the Ohio Express of "Yummy Yummy Yummy I Have Love In My Tummy" fame. Why do I have hunches like this? Very strange.
Anyhow, there were so many Dora The Explorer, Care Bear and Wiggles DVD's in the family section that I thought Rachel was going to fall out like one of those famous Fainting Goats. This is apparently National Obscure Reference Day on the Rachel blog.
http://www.faintinggoat.com/learnab.htm
I have plenty of time to get home before the Falcons kick off against the Vikings, but something doesn't feel right as I get ready to turn onto the highway to go home.
I pull over and there it is, right rear tire flatter than roadkill. (Note to self: come up with better analogies. Reply from self: I'm on it!)
With Rachel in my arms, I search my trunk for the j-hook that turns my jack, all while contemplating how the heck I'm going to do this with an active 2-year-old in my hands. As I rummage through all the junk in my trunk, and I'm not talking about my butt, a kindly woman with a child in the car pulls over, says her name is Laura, she doesn't live far away, but has a 22-month-old daughter and couldn't for the life of her figure out how I was going to fix my tire and watch Rachel. She says, "I know you don't know me, but I'm not a weirdo. Let me sit by your car with your little girl so you can concentrate on what you're doing without worrying about her running into traffic." An angel sent from Lawrenceville. She later calls her husband, Greg, who has an air compressor that hooks to my car's cigarette lighter. He pumps in air that inflates my tire. A minute or so later, it has lost air again.
He pumps in enough air back in to get me moving again, follows me to a nearby Firestone and bids me good luck. The guy behind the counter says they can't get to me today. I tell him, "It's not like I can make it anywhere else." He says he'll try to get to me in ninety minutes. I walk back to the car. It doesn't look like it's lost much air. I decide to chance it. I start the car and hope for the best.
Of course, I hit three consecutive red lights. "AAAARGGGHHHH!!" I let out in my best primal scream. Rachel asks what is wrong. I tell her. This is a good test of my vow not to curse in front of my kid.
We get on the freeway, behind a pickup that's just poking along. We go around him after a half-mile or so and there's a sign of gas stations at the next exit. One says, "Shell" followed by two beautiful words, "Full-Service."
We pull in. The guy couldn't have been nicer. He checked the tire and could find no leak. I asked him to remove it for piece of mind. He immerses it in water. No leak. (It's now two hours later. I checked it. Still no leak.)
Here's my theory. My adorable little traveling companion let the air out of my tire. You see, she walked out ahead of me when we left the house and I saw her playing with the valve stems. These are valve stems that change color when the tire loses air and if they're not connected just right, you can hear the "sssssssssss".
I think Rachel loosened the right rear just enough that the air seeped out while we were at the bookstore. I saw her maneuvering the left rear valve stem before we left and I tightened it before starting the engine.
So I've replaced the fancy valve steams. And later in life, Rachel can tell her friends, "I gave daddy a flat tire when I was 2 1/2 years old."