Tire Changing Friday or AAA is ridiculous

So, my morning started leaving home earlier then usual as I needed to make a trip to Staples to buy my boss a headset thing for his VOIP. I drove by Office Depot first but they don't open till 8am. I'm driving down a local street and some random truck starts beeping frantically. I look over and the guy is pointing at me. Lower the window and he says, "Your tire is REALLY low." I thank him, and proceed to nearest gas station.

And yes, my tire IS really low. Pay 50 cents to the air machine (why is air charged???? What a ripoff!) and fill it up. Or attempt to. I hear a hissing sound and its not coming from the air hose. It's coming from the tire. A tire which appears to have a sideways slice on the side wall. GREAAAAAT. So I fill it as much as possible. Jump in and head to staples. I figure, I'm gonna need a new tire anyhow, so I'll just stop at every other gas station en route and get to work, call Rob, and have him deal with it.

NOPE.

I'm in Staples and a staples employee approaches me.

HIM: You the owner of the silver matrix?

ME: Yes sir that's me. and yes I know my tire is low.

HIM: No miss, your tire is FLAT. If you drive on that it will come off the rim.

*SIGH* I purchase the headset and walk outside. He was not exaggerating. FLAT. VERY VERY Flat.

I send an e-mail out to the office advising of my predicament and start taking out the tire changing materials when I look at the time. 7:45am. I call Rob who is in route to drop Ari off at school. I explain the situation and he says he will swing by after the dropoff and while I am talking to him I look up and see....

I'm a AAA member! And ahoy, this is right across the street. So I head over there reveling in my luck to get my flat tire in view of this building. I smile as I walk in and cheerfully explain my predicament. I'm promptly told that although they are a AAA Service Center, and although their bays are empty and the guys are outside having a smoke, that they can't help me. Yes. Can Not. UM? Why? Because you see. I still need to call Emergency Services. Fine. I will just call and then they can help me! Well, NO. It doesn't work that way. They need to dispatch someone.

So lets revisit this. I'm a AAA member across the street from a AAA Service Center that's not busy and they cannot change my tire. I need to call emergency services and they will dispatch a person to change my tire for me and in the interim I just have to wait.

Seriously???

So, I call emergency services and schedule a tire change. I walk back to my car while speaking to the dispatcher. I tell her, look, I'm going to start changing my own tire. If they show up and I'm not here, I took care of it myself. She says she will note that on the request and that I should have someone out there in an hour. Yeah, I'll be gone by then I tell her. And so that is where I get this picture of my car changing adventure in the shadows of the AAA Service Center.

Rob arrived as I was getting the car mounted to remove the flat tire. AAA arrived as I was getting ready to jump in my car to go to work. And so starts my Friday.