So Long, Old Friend

Reports are surfacing about the newest addition to the endangered-species list - the spare tire. Is it a step forward for energy efficiency, or a copout placing us a step closer to being totally helpless as individuals?

They've been in our trunks, undercarriages and even front compartments of those rear-engine jobs since the dawn of the automotive age. But that age is well into the afternoon, and conditions have changed. Gasoline is never returning to its old prices and car makers are under federal orders to improve the energy efficiency of their engines.

We should have seen it coming with the development of the "doughnut spare," that sawed-off distant relative of the full spare that was marketed as a space-saver, and can carry you only a certain distance while your car looks like it's somehow ailing in one wheel well.

I've known about this for the two years I've been poking around dealerships looking to leave my 2003 Mini-Behemoth behind for something leaner and cleaner. That's when the tire notation on the window stickers started disappearing, replaced by verbiage about an inflator. That's a can filled with stuff that will plug the leak until you can reach a repair shop or a tire dealer.

Salesmen, bless 'em, are trained to downplay the necessity of dragging around that extra weight. And since no car manufacturer seems to be in any hurry to develop a more efficient engine, there aren't many choices but to toss some ballast over the side.

However, if your tire blows out and shreds, we'll have no choice but to wait until a tow truck arrives with a replacement, and we'll be relegated to a standing-and-watching status. The satisfaction of remediating a problem with your own two hands, a jack, and a lug wrench will become a distant memory.

Eventually, no one will remember how to change a tire because there's someone to do it, the same way I can't even remember my wife's cell number because my phone does it.

Then, the only spare tires we'll see are the ones in the vicinity of our belts while we're at fast-food drive-ups, because we no longer know how to cook something at home.

I'm thinking of having the tire on my Mini Behemoth bronzed for posterity. Maybe the Smithsonian will want it some day.