In the latest round of car troubles, I discovered yesterday morning that both tires on the driver's side of my car were flat. I could see out of the apartment window that the car was leaning to the side, but from a distance I couldn't tell that both tires were flat.

I also couldn't tell whether the air had been let out, whether I'd driven over something and punctured the tread, or what was going on.

When Kris got back from classes, he hugged me and said, "I have some bad news." I immediately asked if it had anything to do with my flat tires. I had surmised correctly.

We drove over to Pep Boys and bought a tire inflator thingamajig that plugs into the car lighter, and $16 dollars later we were on our way back to the apartment. Inflated the tires enough to discover that they wouldn't hold any air - what I had pumped in was streaming out a puncture in the side wall. Same with both the front and the rear.

By this time it was dark thirty, so we packed stuff up and headed inside. My dad called and thought I should file a police report, so Kris called the Savannah Police Department, and twenty minutes later an officer was here taking a report.

I went outside and showed him where the holes were, which in the dark and in the absence of any air pressure, you really couldn't tell what was going on. It's not like there is a big knife gash or anything, it's a pretty small puncture wound.

The officer asked several times if either of us had an ex-whatever that might've done this, and after a good hearty laugh, we answered no. That, in fact, we didn't even really know anyone in Savannah, or the eastern seaboard for that matter.

A neighbor from another building walked over and asked if that was our car. She had seen some kids out the night before, they had been going to two different buildings apparently looking for someone, knocking on doors and being pretty loud. She gave the officer a fairly vague description, and confirmed that they had been hanging around near my car. We had heard a commotion, but it was after midnight, the power was out, and it didn't sound to me like they were causing trouble, so like an idiot I just went to sleep.

Today I called around to find out about replacing the tires. It's going to cost about $100, and we had to take the tires off the car and take them in. We put the donut spare on the rear, and have left the front on the jack, which I am guarding as I type this so that neighborhood kids don't go messing around and lose a finger or worse.

I know the police won't find the jackasses who did this, but maybe karma will.

Oh, and my next car will have a full size spare. And maybe a rocket launcher.