I can do it!

I'm not much of a mechanic. Sometimes I've been known to forget which side of the steering wheel the wipers are on, so I honestly can not claim to be very intuitive about cars. The other day when I got off of work, I was on the phone arranging a meet with a friend (actually it was a first 'date' of sorts, shhhhhhhhhhh) which I was on my way to. All of the sudden my car begins making a tapping sound. I told my friend there was something wrong with my car and I'd have to call him back. I pull over onto a side street, put the car in park and get out to walk around it. That pretty much exhausted my expertise on cars. Not a sound, it wasn't making that first tapping noise. I got in the car, revved it up, and still just a purring. Put it in drive, started to drive off and there it goes again, tap.tap.tap.tap. The faster I go, the faster and the louder the tapping got. I pulled over again, walked around it and thought maybe I should look under the hood. Could not find the hood release. I've only had the car for a few months, never had a need to use it. Found it just fine in the manual, though. Got the hood open and still, nothing. So, I get back in the car and start down the road and it's louder than ever.
I call my friend and told him I'd need a raincheck. I'm thinking to myself that I'd try to make it to my home town (just about 10 miles) to my mechanic, but the cars around me are all looking at me trying to figure out what's wrong with my car, which is a really good question, and as the speed limit increases so does the noise of my car. Best way to describe it is if you take a ring on your finger and bang it really hard on something metal. I've done this to imitate it and it's pretty close.
I decide there isn't any way I could drive it home, so I pull over to turn around and go back to a garage not far from where I work. I'm just a tad concerned if they need to keep it over night, they'll be keeping me there too.
I pull into a high school's parking lot to turn around and decide one more time to see if I can find anything wrong with my car. So, here I am dressed in black slacks, a black shell and a white jacket, and I lay down in the parking lot and get underneath my car. Nothing. As far as cars go, mine is pretty darn cute underneath.
I decide I'll have to spend the night at the garage and as I'm getting into the car, I think, one more walk around. I walk around the car and I notice something blue on my front drivers side tire. I get down to look at it closer and it's a deflated balloon, attached to the tire. A long, thin, blue balloon. I'm thinking 'surely not', and I peel it off of the tire. Yup, that was it.
I am so glad I did not take it to the mechanic. Wonder how long it'd taken them to find it...and how much it would've cost me.
I'm really good with cars.