A while back (ok 10 years) I lost both tires on my cannondale MTB to goatheads. Luckily I wasn't commuting, but I was about a mile from home and decided to cut across an open field - I made it almost all the way before I realized what had happend. I gave up on picking them out though and just bought new tires and tubes. We had just moved to El Paso, TX after several years in Germany, but I grew up in the southwest and should have known better. When I was a kid my most dreaded chore was having to pull a whole bucket of them after school every day. So Rando, I feel your pain - $%^##@#$ goatheads!