the drowning man light

My new used car has not given me the boost of confidence that I was looking for. The gearshift has jammed up a few times, but neither Car Max's repair shop nor Nissan's has been able to reproduce the problem or find anything wrong.

I also hit a piece if debris on the highway a couple of weeks ago and punched a hole in one of the tires. I think it was left from an accident that was not fully cleared. It was the same color as the road, and I didn't see it in time to stop. I couldn't change lanes, because somebody was next to me. I hit it with the right front tire. It flew out and came around and punched a hole in the sidewall of the right rear tire. In addition, the front one looked low, but it was still driveable.

Chivalry does exist. A man on his way to work to fix up Opryland (which suffered extensive flood damage), stopped and changed the back tire without me even asking. He just got out of his truck, said "It looks like you need help," and did it. I was near my workplace, so I drove it there on the donut tire and the low front tire.

Kurt took both tires to a tire store. One was irreparable. They said the other was fine. It looked low to me, but no lower than a lot of other cars in the parking lot.

But this car has left me a nervous driver, so when the light shown above lit up on my dash on the way to work two days ago, I pulled off.

Now I don't know what this looks like to you, but I think it looks like a drowning man. There are stylized waves at the bottom and two arms waving around above the head. I stared at the light and tried to imagine what it could be. I have sometimes felt I am drowning in my life, but I don't have that kind of connection with my car, at least not yet.

When all else fails, read the directions. It's a low tire pressure indicator. The tires looked okay to me, so I drove to work. Later, we added more air to the low tire, even though it's pressure reading was fine. Now it's higher, the light is off, and I hope everything is fine and that the drowning man light stays off in my life for a while.