Some Birthday Present

Joah turned 30 on Tuesday. On Thursday morning he woke up stiff and sore from sleeping wrong. I guess getting old comes like a thief in the night.
Wednesday night, we celebrated his birthday by going to the new Rave Theater to see Quantum of Solace (the new James Bond movie, which was pretty good according to me who has never seen a Bond movie before). As we came out of the theater through the unlit overflow parking lot, discussing the movie and anticipating waking Jack from his slumber at my parents' house, we approached the car, which looked a little funny. "Oh no," Joah said, realizing the problem before I did. "We have two flat tires."
Sure enough, both tires on the driver's side were totally deflated, causing the whole car to lean to the left. We have a spare, but that doesn't help two tires, so we called my dad, who was thankfully still awake, to go and get the fix-a-flat spray from Joah's truck and bring it to us at the theater. Meanwhile, Joah started changing the back tire for the spare as we wondered aloud what we might have run over on our way to the movies.
Realizing that Raley's might have fix-a-flat, we called my dad to tell him not to come all the way out because we were going to try to make it to Raley's before they closed at 11:00. We hustled across the empty parking lot and across the street to Raley's where we made it by 10:58, just before they locked the doors, and did find what we were looking for. We made our purchase and headed back to the car, slipping on some mud in the dark, almost falling, but not quite.
Joah attached the fix-a-flat bottle to the remaining flat tire and started spraying... and we began to hear a constant hisssss. I pulled out my cell phone, opened it up, and shined its light on the tire. There it was. A lovely slash. We inspected the other tire, and sure enough: another slash, longer than the first. Someone had slashed our tires. Ours. Out of the whole parking lot of cars. No one else was standing around with cars leaning to the side.
We have no McCain/Palin stickers, we have no Christian fish. We did not cut anyone off on the road before the movies. There was no rhyme or reason to the slashing.
The next day being Thanksgiving, we did not want to leave the car anywhere for two days, so Joah called a tow truck (thankfully covered by our insurance) to tow the car to our house, and my dad came to take me back to their house where I took Jack home in their Expedition.
The tow truck did not arrive to pick up Joah and the car until 1 AM, so we were both glad that the next day was a holiday.
Joah joined the throngs of shoppers on Friday morning, searching not for deals on Christmas gifts, but on a set of tires, which must be replaced in groups of four, lest the all-wheel-drive vehicle be ruined. The man at the tire store told Joah that another man had recently come in with all four tires slashed, also at the Streets of Brentwood shopping center.
Lesson to be Learned: Don't park in an unlit parking lot, especially at the Streets of Brentwood. Or else become Amish so you drive a horse and buggy with wooden wheels that cannot be slashed.