Rescued

 Reading the Saturday morning paper I was pleasantly surpirsed to see that there was a fly-in airshow in progress at the Double Eagle Airport on Albuquerque's West Side.  I packed a couple cameras and headed across town in Margaret's Nissan Versa.  (She had gotten a ride to Santa Fe with friends and the Nissan is nicer to drive than my old pickup.)

I took Central to Atrisco Vista and headed up the road to the airfield.  Some construction barriers partially blocked the road.  I went straight in the absence of signs and landed on some rough road.  Hitting a pothole while going too fast blew out the front-right tire.

I decided I could drive on the deflated tire and headed back a half mile to a truck stop.  I parked and opened the trunk to start the tire change.  I found that the cover over the spare's compartment had some weird latch that I couldn't seem to figure out.

I pried open one side of the compartment cover.  I could see the spare and the jack, but there was no rod for raising the jack and no lug wrench.  Time to go for some help.

I went to the repair shop where I found a couple people working on a big truck.  I was told they could not work on a car and I was given a road service number to call.  I called, but no one answered.

I went around to the gas station/convenience store and asked at the counter for a service contact number.  Nobody knew any.  Then, a big kid working behind the counter said "I can help fix the problem". 

The kid went out with me to where the car was parked and quickly figured out that the spare tire compartment cover needed to be rotated to open.  He took out the little spare tire and had it on the car in about five minutes.  What a relief!

We walked back into the store together.  On the way he told me his was a freshman at UNM majoring in BA.  I got eighty bucks from the ATM and gave half to the kid.  He tried to give me twenty back.  "No", I said, "you earned it."