Tires and Fuses and Horns, Oh My!

It all started with an innocent, relaxing swim. Perhaps I should clarify that by "swim" I mean standing in four-feet-deep water and chatting with my friend Laura. Or perhaps that clarification wasn't necessary because the swimming isn't at all the focus of this story, but oh well.
So after this leisurely swim, I headed home for what I thought would be an equally relaxing shower and evening spent watching my guilty pleasure MTV show "Teen Mom." Don't judge me. MTV shows are train wrecks for me. But I'm getting off track again.
So there I was at the stoplight at 15th and Sara, and when the light turned green, I took off, as people generally do when the light finally changes from red to green. All of a sudden, I heard a noise that immediately told me something was wrong with my car, more specifically, my tire. The only way I can describe the noise is that it sounded like when you put baseball cards in bicycle spokes. My heart sank. I just knew I had a flat tire. I also knew there was no room in my budget for a new tire. Luckily, I was less than a mile from home, so I drove 20 mph, wondering if the people passing me could see my tire shredding with each passing foot of ground I covered.
When I pulled into my garage what seemed like ten tense minutes later (but was actually more like two), I dreaded getting out to assess the damage. A first inspection, however, proved that I did not have a flat tire, as I had first suspected. When I knelt on the ground to find out what had caused the ungodly noise, this is what I found:

I still don't really know what it is, but it was described to me as a screw (nail, maybe?) that is used in construction.

I immediately sent Randel the picture and asked if this large screw-like object stuck in my tire would require me to get a new tire. He said no, that I should just be able to get it patched. I heaved a sigh of relief and did a happy dance.
After work the next day, my friend Shawna went with me to Walmart to get this bad boy patched up and not sounding like a bike with cards in its spokes anymore. The helpful attendant said they could get that done right away, and because he was so helpful, I asked if they could also replace the bulb for my left blinker, which was on its way out. After saying they could, Shawna and I went inside to browse while we waited. About five minutes into our browsing, we heard over the loud speaker: "Ashley Luckett, please come to the tire center to speak with your tire consultant."
"Uh-oh," I told Shawna. "That doesn't sound good."
We made our way back and, to make a long story short, were told that the tire couldn't actually be patched because the large screw-like object had started separating or shredding my tire. Lovely, I thought. I'll need a new tire after all.
The attendant was very nice and looked up the price of the tire at other places, and we found that Discount Tire in Yukon was the cheapest. So they put the spare on, threw the now-useless tire in the trunk, and Shawna and I headed to Yukon. While we waited at Discount Tire, Shawna and I got to talking about how my horn and cigarette lighter didn't work. (I only want the lighter so I can charge my phone on long trips; not because I've recently taken up smoking.) Shawna called her dad to see if he knew what kind of fuses we would need for that. He said to bring the car over and he would take a look at it.
Fifteen minutes and $140 later, we headed to Shawna's house. Her dad found the fuse we needed for the horn located under the hood and the one for the lighter in the trunk (odd). So off we went to O'Reilly. We went in like pros and found the fuses with no problem. After paying, we went outside to pop the trunk and hood. We were going to replace the fuses right then and there. When both were installed (not sure if that's the correct verb, but we'll go with it), I nervously got in the car to see if we had been successful. I plugged in my car charger, and the red light came on! One down. Then I blew the horn.
My first thought was that it had passed gas. Then I decided it sounded sick. I honestly cannot describe the hilarious sound it made. I was embarrassed by my car's bodily noises, so we just took off. Thinking that perhaps my horn just sounded so awful because of months of disuse, I blew the horn again on the way to pick up Shawna's car, and the sound threw us into fits of laughter.
I still haven't figured out what's wrong with it, but I won't be using it anytime soon. Rather than scaring away the driver who creeps into my lane or cuts me off, it will cause him to laugh at my attempts at threatening him.

Fuses: $6
Replacement bulb: $10
New tire: $140
Flatulent horn: priceless