Did you pickup the hitchhiker? I don't know. How's my tire?

As I drove to school this morning, I saw a pair of hitchhikers on the North bound ramp of I85. A horseshoe mustached man and a round, blond haired woman made me think about the time I was compelled to pick-up a hitchhiker walking along the side of the road. I was driving back to Georgia after 9 months of school at BYU. With my 1993 VW FOX loaded to the brim, except for a CD case, map, and food in the front seat, I decided to detour myself over and visit my cousin Kevin Kortman in Fort Collins, CO. As a reference point, it usually takes me 32 hours to get from Marietta, GA to Provo, UT. I was planning on taking three days to make the trek; it took 5 days.
When I decided to detour to Ft. Collins, I passed a lanky, scruffy looking man hitch hiking along the side of the road. I thought about stopping, but in the end, I decided that it wasn't a good idea and passed him. Less than a mile later, "*clocsh* flip-flip-flurr-floprr-flip-fliprr" the outer sidewall of my tire detached itself from the body. Changing a tire is an annoyance that is easily remedied with the appropriate tools and mind frame of "I'm reinforcing my manliness by changing this tire." The thing that I always forget to include in the emergency/tire changing toolkit is a way to clean yourself up after you've done what you need to do. Also, if for any reason your not able to quickly change the tire or do the repair, it's likely I will sweat my clothes to wet and further require a towel or washcloth. Finally, the notion that "I am so manly" changing this tire is somewhat negated when you're worried about getting grime on your pants or ruining a shirt, or messing yourself. The repair took longer than I had hoped mainly because I had packed my trunk tightly with my stuff before leaving under which were the tools and tire needed to fix the one that had "broke." With my belongings on the asphalt, I see the lanky vagrant get closer and closer. Just as I am putting on the last lug nut, the man is 200 meters away. It was a sign that I should have picked him up the first time.
The particulars of finding a repair shop and the trip to the next town with the syphilitic man that had his vehicle taken from him by his ex-girlfriend that he had just helped move into her new apartment, which (of course) was the reason he had to walk back home that night is for another post, if you'd like. This is one of the reasons that the 3 day trek took 5, two were eaten up walking 12 miles on dirt roads from Quinter, Kansas, to Grainfield and hitching a ride back.
The point of this was. I saw some hitchhikers the other day. I thought about picking them up, but I did not. They may have been decent. I guess I'll never know; my tire didn't blow out.