A friendly kind of place

My Free T-Shirt! Notice they don't show red convertible sport cars as their potential client vehicles--so I was somewhat out of place while doing business here! No Coach purses or suburban ladies in this business!

While visiting my friends in Small Town Missouri, my hostess noticed that my front tire had a crack in the tread. Upon inspecting it, we noticed that there seemed to be something hard in the center of the crack, perhaps a nail. I panicked, realizing that Small Town Missouri businesses usually were not open on the weekend, and I was afraid of driving on the interstate at night with a bad tire.

I had to make some hasty plan changes, and my friend, Coach C, recommended a new place in town that was a tire store. He described where it was, I knew the place, so I went to seek out help.

When I drove up to the place, THERE WAS A PARTY GOING ON RIGHT THERE (Singing "Celebration" in my mind!--get the groove on that?) Lots of cars, people running around, every kind of vehicle you can imagine was parked out there, but mostly pick-up trucks. You see, this is a working class community, full of hard-working folks, mostly small businessmen, farmers, ranchers, construction workers. Also, it is rural Missouri, so you see your share of "colorful" characters. I swore I saw ZZ Top's brother there, with a fine combed beard down to his belly button!

The party was because the business was celebrating their grand opening. They had breakfast--coffee and donuts, lunch--barbeque and beverages, free t-shirts, your name in the box for a drawing for an attendance prize--they were all but giving away the tires.

I told them of my dilema, and they said they would get to it after they helped 3 other customers. I say by watching the show unfold in front of me, and realized that they were doing a very nice business to go along with their generousity to their clients. One young man started working on my tire worked and worked for about 15 minutes, when he finally came in to tell me he couldn't find a leak in my tire. In the meantime, I had been offered breakfast, lunch, a free shirt, a potential prize, a clean bathroom, and a chance to wait in a nice facility. Now that's hometown hospitality for you! Then, the young man told me--"Ma'am, there isn't anything wrong with your tire, so I can't charge you anything, I didn't DO anything!" I tried to offer them something for their work--he did work on it for over 30 minutes, but he wouldn't take a cent.

You can see why I liked living and working in that community. The people who live there are good and generous souls, willing to give you a fair amount of work for the amount of money they charge for services. I've had some bad experiences with folks who were not qualified to do the work they said they could do, but for the most part, the folks that live there were good workers, and great people to deal with.

Try getting off on the by-ways someday--this business is located on old Route 66--and they are a fine bunch of people. I hope they don't give the whole store away and can keep their business going in this lousy economy. Thank you MY PLACE TIRES! Wish I could have given you some real business, but I'll recommend you to all my friends!