Welcome to another edition of Road Tested Reviews. This week I’m deviating from the script a bit to tell you about an adventure with my brand new vehicle and my psychotic dog. I will cover all the mistakes made, absurdities experienced and opportunities missed so you can learn from them. Lesson number one is this: I should not attempt to do nice things for man or beast. My good deeds never seem to go unpunished.
ROAD TESTED REVIEWS – JANUARY 12, 2018
“Every day I don’t get into a car accident is a miracle!”
I said this to my husband for a better part of a year, while driving my Toyota Sequoia. If you’re not familiar, the Sequoia is aptly named and someone of my ahem…stature, should not be driving something with the moniker of the most humongous tree on the planet.

A tiny woman and her massive SUV.
So I got a new, smaller, more expensive SUV.
One month later my new, smaller, more expensive SUV broke down while I had my two boys and the dog in it. I had to wait for over an hour for the tow truck and my husband to show up, on the side of a busy two lane highway, 30 minutes from home. I was not happy.
The new, smaller and more expensive SUV was fixed and returned to me within 24 hours. We decided to name her Claire. #thatsafatgirlsname

Here’s something you don’t see everyday in my neighborhood.
Fast forward to a few days before Christmas.
I’m off with the boys to pick up and then deliver three massive trays of Italian cookies because sometimes I try to convince myself I’m a good person. I decide to take “the beast” (aka my one year old Weimaraner StarFire) with me since I don’t want to crate her for the few hours we will be gone. Like her owner, she suffers from anxiety and hates to be left behind. I take only her leash and not her harness thinking she will never even get out of the back of the car.
This is mistake number one. Or possibly two. Who’s counting when there were so many made?
We make it to the Italian cookie bakery without incident. The problem begins when exiting the parking lot. I have to make a left and cross over two very busy lanes of traffic. I zip out, misjudge the curb on the other side of my destination lane a bit and hit it, but make the turn and the light. Boom. Mission accomplished.
I get about a quarter mile down the road and my new, smaller and more expensive SUV display tells me the pressure in my right front tire should be checked. Great. Ok, whatever.
Luckily, my first cookie delivery destination is to my dear friends at Fleet Feet just about two miles away. I park, get out of the car, and that’s when I hear it.
Hisssssssssssssss
That my friends is the sound of air pouring out of my right front tire. I could actually hear it when I got out of the car.
I freak out.
I declare Claire cursed.
I seriously cannot believe that by hitting a curb I could slash a tire.
Claire is a princess car and I am NOT a princess.
This would never have happened in my Sequoia. I know because I hit curbs all the time.
My kids are freaking out because I am, so I stop. I tell them not to say a word about the tire to my friends at Fleet Feet because I don’t want them to have to worry about me. We deliver the cookies and head back out to cursed Claire.
The roadside assistance number is now in my “favorites” so I dial and order up AAA, and then we wait. This is when I decide to bring the psycho dog out to relieve herself. This may be a good time to mention that StarFire hates strangers and we are in a strip mall filled with strangers, right before Christmas, at night. Basically, this is her worst nightmare and it turns into mine.

This is Star at the vet because the vet is a stranger and she will bite her. Maybe. Obviously we should have named her Hanibal. Also note the harness.
I don’t have the harness and she is a 55 pound mass of sheer muscle. She is a hunting dog by nature and is scared of anything she cannot run up to and bite.
It’s about 20 degrees out and I’m pulling her with all my might across the parking lot to a grassy area in the back alleyway. At this point my kids roll down the window and start yelling at me to “stay where we can see you” as I wrestle with the beast who is lunging and barking at every.single.person who has the audacity to step out of their car and out into her world.
I need a drink.
I wrestle StarFire back into the trunk of my new, smaller, more expensive SUV and that’s when I realize the spare tire is in the trunk just underneath the beast. She will need to be removed while the AAA guy changes the tire.
Shit.
When he arrives I wrestle her out. She lunges and barks at him and I have to literally wrap her leash around her neck to keep her head from exploding. I yell apologies over the din of the dog and my children and yank Star back into the dark alleyway as far as possible from people, and that’s when I see them. Tiny little lights, the glow of headlamps and the unmistakable footfalls of…runners!
Apparently Fleet Feet is having their holiday run and some of the participants are warming up, right in the path of myself and the beast.
I want to cry.
I spend the better part of the next 20 minutes pulling and petting and coaxing and yelling at my Star while desperately trying to keep her from my people, the runners. How is this even happening?
Mercifully the tire is finally changed, I get my now exhausted dog into the back once again, calm the boys’ wrestling match in the back seat and start up cursed Claire to head home.
I call my husband and say I’m having a bottle of wine and one of the trays of cookies for dinner and most of me wants to actually do it.
Since this is technically a review post, here is my summary:
A dog harness is fantastic but only when you actually have one.
I obviously need to be driven to places via Uber and my dog should never go anywhere in public. We are each, in our own way, menaces to society.
Cookies should always be delivered to me and not by me, Christmas or otherwise.
My next vehicle will be a used, bigger, less expensive 4 x 4.
[Tweet “The adventures of a woman, her SUV and psychotic dog and why no good deed goes unpinished. #roadtestedreviews”]
What was the last good deed you did that was punished?
When was the last time you needed roadside assistance?
As someone who is not a fan of driving can relate to this. I drive a small sedan with “run flat” tires. That means if you hit something that creates a hole in the tire, it can run and drive about 60 miles with no issues…and I have done that.
However, these tires are weak AF and expensive AF to replace. I am talking like $300+ a tire…anything can puncture them and I’ve literally gone through 4 tires. Something in the near future, I plan to get normal tires.
OMG I think I need those tires!! They will probably end up saving us money…sadly 🙂 LOL!!! I’m sorry you can relate but I’m happy I’m not alone. Thanks Hollie!
We had a new furnace installed yesterday, and you can only imagine how pleasant that was. Two strange men in my house? Traipsing in and out for hours?
Look at it as crosstraining….
OMG! That would be a deal breaker for Star. I think she would lose it!! Hope you got a lot of extra steps in 🙂 and didn’t lose your mind!
Damn girl! As someone who has been a passenger in your big ass suv, I felt very safe with my tiny driver. Bring back the sequoia!
HAHAHA!! Thanks Angela 🙂 I kinda want to bring it back but I think my husband will kill me!
OMG, this is amazing. I too recently got a new (my first really “new” car ever) very expensive SUV and I have turned into such a psychopath about it. Not ideal when you have a dog that sheds a lot (who I refuse to let anywhere near the car) and an 8 year old boy living with you who cannot fathom why we are not allowed to eat in the car. I also ran over a curb today and had a panic attack because I thought my tire was going to go flat. I should have gotten a cheaper car (and used) haha!
OMG I know!! I won’t let the boys eat in it and I make them clean the back of the seat every time they get it dirty, which of course is every time they’re in the car. I think I need to relax but ugh!!! And yes, neither one of us OCD crazed women should be driving these cars…LOL!
OMG. Allie! I’m sweating just reading this!
P.S. I loved your Sequoia 🙂
SO you can imagine how sweaty I was? LOL!!
I loved my Sequoia too. #wah
Omg Allie! You need to bring back the Sequoia!
My parents attempted to teach me to drive on an Armada, which is also aptly named, so you can just imagine how that all went down. And yet now, I’m more of a disaster driving small cars. Big SUV, please. When we drove out to Washington from Indiana, we took my husband’s small Hynaudi and I thought I was going to careen it off a mountain pass or puncture the tires at the smallest curb.
HAHAHA!! That is too much but I love the visuals. I feel like the size of the Range Rover is perfect but everything else is a disaster!!
this is crazy but hysterical, i’m sorry i laughed!!! that sounds about right, though. i literally had a morning like this, minus the dog and car issues…
yesterday i told my manager i’d do her a favor and stop by IKEA to pick up some cheapo champagne flutes for a party on my way to work, and as an EXTRA favor she wanted some Starbucks so she placed a mobile order for me to pick up.
those 2 things seem fairly simple, right???
at IKEA – they were out of the stuff i wanted, but it showed they had them in stock, but they couldn’t find them. then they said they had them but would not get them because it involved machinery (????) and not machinery during business hours. then i had to get a manager to price match what i wanted based on what they had, and took a literal hour and a half and act of Congress. there were only 3 checkout people and everyone checking out was complicated… and then they didn’t know how to ring me up. 1.5 hours later again!!! i nearly lost it. kept my cool. finally i said i had to leave to pick up anothe order so the dude says, “well ok i’ll just make it a coupon, here ya go” WHat???? crazy!
next up, Starbucks.
first i drive the Starbucks next door and get stuck in the drive thru line, when a lady walks in front of my car, in line, and starts to do Tai Chi.. i couldn’t believe it so i took a picture and sent it to my manager. she couldn’t believe it either. finally i got her to move, then discovered my manager ordered her drinks from a Starbucks much further away. FML.
i finally drove there and while i’m in that line, i discover my Instacart order got delivered to my office which my nanny needed. i have no use for eggs and dish soap and butt paste at work.
finally 3 hours later i am on my way to work, with starbucks, a free turkey, and a backseat filled with cheapo champagne flutes.
i arrive back to my boss saying, “that took you forever!”
FML
so glad i’m leaving early hahaha happy friday! happy anything!!!
WOW. Girl – you have me beat with ALL of that!! Hope you really enjoyed the weekend 🙂
Doesn’t you New more expensive car come with road service? If it does use it instead of AAA the call goes to the same place but you get faster service. Kind of like cutting in line.
What a day tho Star did not eat the cookies which was a plus.! Next deliveries are on a week day with the boys in school and Star at home with Mike❤️
Haha – yes. I called the road service and they send AAA. They did come very quickly, not like the first time. And yes, Star was blocked from the cookies so that was definitely a plus!! Thanks Janey xoxo