“I think we have a flat,” I say, noticing a change in the tone of wheels on pavement.

It’s mid summer, but Mike has flipped off the AC for more power. We have the windows down for the drive up White Bird Hill.

“Yup, hang on,” he says. We pull over.

I’ve never changed a tire, but could write a manual; I’ve seen Mike change so many on our own, worn vehicles.

Not on this car, though. This isn’t our ‘74 Suburban, with the odometer stuck at 190,000 miles and a hole rusted in the floorboards, nor is it the faded pickup we’d driven home from college the year we started dating. This is a red, sporty thing. We are cruising stylishly to my high school reunion.

I’ve posted in this blog about my fear of being the biggest hillbilly family on the block by virtue of my approach to yard work. If anyone takes offense to the term “hillbilly,” I actually mean to say a “hill person” or, um, “prairie challenged,” whatever.

To clarify for the purposes of this post, in using the term this time, I’m talking less about the number of dogs one has sleeping under the porch than I am an attitude; a general prickliness toward one’s neighbors. That and a propensity to threaten people with firearms are all you need to be a hillbilly by my reckoning. And maybe a bad haircut.

What I’m actually referring to is the full-on Hatfield-slash-McCoy situation going on in my neighborhood.