You were likely moving when it happened, so stop. After you stop, check on damage. And then ask, what in the world happened that made my wheels fall off. Coulda been one wheel, coulda been more than one. How long did you notice your wheels were loose or did you even notice at all? Is the wheel broken, bent, scraped, or otherwise damaged? How about your car, or whatever the wheel fell off of? That’s a lot of questions that need to be answered pretty quickly so you can get back on the road again.
As you can see from the picture, my problem was with my lawn mower. Although, a couple of years ago, after a friend helped me change out some custom wheels, I was headed down the road one day in my Jeep and all of a sudden I heard a knocking sound. It didn’t make sense until I got out of the car and looked around—loose lug nuts. I turned around and went home, got out my impact drive and tightened the 5 loose nuts. Guess what, I didn’t check the other 4 wheels. It wasn’t long, the next day, that the same sound invaded the inside of the Jeep as I was jetting alone the roadway. Turn around again, went back home, and discovered all 3 of the other wheels were to some degree, loose. I tightened them all up (later I took them all back off to check if there was wheel stud damage, there wasn’t any) and went on my way.
From the Jeep experience I learned one valuable lesson. When someone helps you do something and you are not really sure about their experience in the matter, take a minute or two and check their work.
But this missive is more about my mower. What happened that caused the “tire” to break apart and fall off? If you look closely, you will also notice a bit of paint missing from the side of the mower. That means I got too close to some things like brick walls, fences, curbing, and patios. When you rub up against things that you shouldn’t, something is likely to fall apart.
You can’t see the other wheels, but another one is about to fall off and the others two are as bare as a. . .you know. That means they’ve been used a lot. I’m not sure I would say overused, but at least overlooked. Sometimes, when we are working our tails off, making ends meet, and trying to meet the needs of those around us, we overlook our “tread life.” When we do, we will probably spin out at some point.
God made our bodies for worship and work. We can get too busy doing both. If we don’t rest when we desperately need rest, something we really need to do will get overlooked or underdone. And then the wheels fall off. We feel guilty or someone fusses at us. Our feelings are already running shallow, so we bark back at the person who is just trying to help us understand we need to slow down and smell something fragrant.
I heard it said, and said it myself, “I’ll drive this one until the wheels fall off.” If you’re not careful, it will happen way sooner than you expect.
larrywaynesykes.com 