Let me tell you a little a story about my last pizza delivery tonight.
I pulled out of the parking lot, turning north towards Fort Sill. I
needed to turn again onto a 4 lane about 100 yards after leaving the
parking lot. Suddenly the left front end did a nose dive. I'm looking
through a shower of sparks watching one of my wheels roll down the
road.

I got as far to the right as possible, hit the four way flasher, and
took off walking down the road chasing my wheel. While I'm walking
down the road I got on the cell and called the store, letting them
know what happened so that they can get another driver to come finish
my delivery.

Also, while I'm walking I'm thinking that if something like this had
to happen, it really couldn't have happened at a better time and
place. First, I had just turned onto the road and was about to make a
turn, so I was going much slower than the 45mph speed limit. It would
have been much worse if I had make the turn and was going down the
other road at the speed limit (50mph), or even worse made the turn
onto the turnpike another half mile down the road where the limit is
65 mph. Second, it's almost 1AM - I'm the only vehicle on the road at
the time. While I'm still in the truck watching the wheel roll up the
road, I remember hoping and praying that no one picks that time to
come up the off ramp.

About the time I make it back to the truck with the runaway wheel the
other driver arrives, grabs the food and heads off to make the
delvery. I get out my flashlight and start looking the situation over.
Front left rotor resting on the ground, and of course it's shot, no
longer round it's flat on one side, and the hub cover is missing. I
head back the road and find the cover, but can only find one lug nut.
About the time I find the lug nut a cop shows up. I tell him what's
going on.

While I'm trying to figure out how to fit a 6 inch tall jack under an
axle that's now about 2-3 inches off the ground he starts looking for
the missing lug nuts. Another cop shows up, and together they check
both sides of the road, all four lanes, looking for the missing lug
nuts. Another store employee (ex Army mechanic) shows up and together
we figure out a way to jack up the truck, using two jacks on the frame
to get it high enough to get another one under the axle. As we're
getting the wheel on (stealing one lug nut from two of the other
wheels) the cops come back to report no luck finding more lug nuts.

We talk it over and I decide to just limp to the local Midas (naton
wide chain of brake/exhaust/suspension specialists) shop, which,
luckily, just happens to be 6-8 blocks away. One of the cops takes
off, while the other follows me with his lights going, waits while I
leave the keys in the mail box and a note telling them what happened
and promising to call first thing in the morning. Then he gives me a
ride back to the pizza shop.

Tomorrow, well later this morning, I'll find out what this will end up
costing. I know the brake rotor is shot, and rather than replacing one
I'll end up replacing both. As long as I'm having to replace those,
will also look at repacking the wheel bearings, new brake pads and
front end alighnment. Not even thinking about what else could be
damaged, I won't be surprised if I end up just handing over my
paycheck to Midas. Another lucky break, payday is Thursday, but my
boss was managing tonight and went ahead and paid me cash tonight to
make sure I have enough for the repairs.

Can you tell I'm trying hard to keep remembering how much worse things
could have been? Tonight I'm just thankful that no one was hurt - just
damage to the truck. Tomorrow I imagine I'll start to get  p*ssed off
when I learn how much the damage is going to cost. Did I mention my
discovery when I got back to the pizza parking lot? It looks like
someone took off some of the lug nuts there in the parking lot,
loosening the ones not removed completely. I found one of them on the
far side of the lot where no one ever parks. Yep, I figure I might be
more than a little PO'ed tomorrow. No way to ever find out who the
prankster was. I'm guessing someone with a little too much to drink
came out of one of the bars on either side of the shop, noticed I had
a lug wrench in the bed of the truck, and thought it'd be a funny
joke.

Okay enough of that, now for a little Rant off the truck topic: I've
been having server glitches here lately. After relating the problem
with the truck, an error message popped up saying my server didn't
recognise my user ID/password. I finally get caught up with the group
- mainly by lurking and not replying to many posts, except silent
purrs to those in need, and now my server is conspiring to put me
behind again.

This is the second time in the past couple weeks this has happened.
Last time was on a Friday night, which meant I couldn't upload or
download anything from the newsgroup server. By Monday, when I had
tech support available, it was recognizing me. Now the problem is back
;-(( I don't know when this message will actually be sent off -
Probably not until I've been able to find out what the damage will
cost. So I may post an update at the same time this goes out.

OK, rather than posting a separate update (since the stinking server
has yet to allow me to sent off the original) here's the update. Cost
ended up to be $536.94. Actually that cost is inflated, since I okayed
work that really had nothing to do with losing the wheel. I probably
could have picked up the truck and driven away for less than half
that. But, like I mentioned above, since they had the truck in the
shop anyway, I did a lot of "might as well" work. They had to replace
the one rotor, so "might as well" replace both. The brake pads may
have had another 20,000 miles on them, but "might as well" replace
them since they're doing the rotors. The rotors were off, so "might as
well" repack the wheel bearings. You get the idea, those "might as
well" charges add up after a while. I didn't have to pay for the pads,
though. I have the Midas lifetime warranty and they agreed to go ahead
and replace them early. Midas really didn't have people like me in
mind when they thought up that life time warranty - I bought the truck
almost 20 years and over 200,000 miles ago and they've replaced the
brakes, shocks and done exhaust work several times.

Oh, and after picking up the truck I stopped by the pizza shop to they
them it was repaired and pick up a pizza to bring home so Sammy would
have a warm box to sit on (had to to sneak in something cat related
into the post). As I was leaving I glanced over, saw something and
stopped. Yep another of the missing lug nuts.