Lovely day here on Long Island! I rode east rather aimlessly, talking to people, taking pictures of birds and bad art, nearly got creamed by a car turning left... at Easthampton decided to turn left and had up to Sag Harbor. Got in the left lane, signaled a turn, saw a freshly broken bottle below me, and pft. It wasn't loud, but I knew the sound. Patched the tube in the shade of a windmill, pumped it up...rode a hundred yards and PFT. Louder this time. Tube blew through the gash in the tire. Patched it, put a dollar bill in the tire as a boot, pumped it up, got ready to ride, and heard an ominous creaking sound. Deflated the tire as fast as I could, and found I hadn't seated it right. Seated it right and pumped it up and Pfooo, my pump was no longer attached to the wheel. The little lockring on the valve stem was still there, but the rest if the valve was still in my pump.
I put in my replacement tube and pumped it up, got on the bike, and the rear tire was already flat again. Took the tube out and found it was punctured. Patched the hole...pumped up, it still wasn't holding... Patched a second hole in the new tube, right next to the first one, pumped up, making sure my $1 boot was still in place, rode on. I'd been patching tires for over two hours by this time. A mile or two down the road I heard a pt pt pt pt sound, stopped to inspect my $1 boot. It was fine. But the tire was close to failure at another spot, casing tearing away from the bead. I booted it with a Cliff Bar wrapper and rode on. By now I had no hope of reaching Sag Harbor, and little hope of reaching home, but I took a direct route toward home. In Southampton I pass a bike shop and (glory be!) It was open. Bought an overpriced tire, installed it, and no more problems. I don't know how to count that... I guess that's one flat, though.