The Compressor Had Opinions

Kat had lowered the tire pressures for the trail. Before the highway, she needed all four back at the truck's road pressures.

Which is how she ended up kneeling in a pullout at five in the afternoon next to a compressor the size of a lunchbox, doing math out loud with an audience that had opinions about the math.

The compressor had opinions of its own. It was hot, it had already done two tires, and it was getting slower, so the estimate kept sliding in the wrong direction. Somebody suggested doing three tires and 'sorting the last one out later,' which is the kind of idea that only appears after eleven hours in the sun.

They didn't. They sat in the truck's shadow, took turns holding the chuck, and rested the compressor the way its manual says to instead of running it until it quit. Forty minutes. The sun got low and the air actually turned pleasant and the conversation went somewhere good, the way it does when nobody has anything to do but wait.

That's the part worth keeping. The compressor was right, they were tired, and the correct move was the slow one. The highway home was smooth and boring and nobody thought about the tires once.

Kat bought a bigger compressor that winter. She still brings the small one as a backup, because it earned that.