I was driving home from taking my kids to school, the one day I actually wore jeans and boots instead of an oversized sweatshirt and pajama bottoms. The car simply stopped accelerating, like I do on occasion Friday afternoons. I’m done. I can’t do any more. Time for pizza. Except I was driving, which made things a tad awkward.
I pulled my SUV over to the shoulder, which is a tiny strip on the side of the road that’s more of a pinky finger, since it’s not broad and carries nothing off the end of it. It simply drops off into a mesquite-tree abyss. Here I am precariously sitting on this pinky finger of the road wondering why my vehicle suddenly needed a holiday.
But no worries, because I have AAA, the Stalwart Savior of Emergencies, whose card sits proudly in my wallet for times exactly such as these.
I called AAA, told them I needed a tow truck, and explained where I was on the highway with specificity and that “of course I’ll be right here” when hearing a tow truck was on the way. Where else would I go? A man doesn’t leave his soldier behind. In my case, a woman with no make-up and a messy bun doesn’t leave her Lexus SUV.
An hour goes by. My husband has a work call and is stuck in traffic. I’m not sure what’s taking so long with the tow truck. I have no book to read, which is how I occupy dead periods of time, which makes me nervous. I begin a tirade of social media posts. I call my mother. My foot begins tapping against the floorboard of the car. At least I’m wearing my nice boots.
But then the real panic sets in. I suddenly felt my throat closing up. I am parched. I have no water. How can I survive? What if I’m here for days? I look down and see my YETI with coffee made fresh this morning and a half-open can of sparkling water shoved in the door of my car. But no one likes to drink flat sparkling water, which is not in fact “just regular water.” I frantically look around my car for a granola bar my children didn’t eat. Ah, the days when food was plentiful. When you could just say “I’m not in the mood” when your mother hands you an all-natural whole-grain bar made with almonds.
I call AAA to see what’s taking so long. The operator on the phone tells me their computer is down, and that maybe a tow truck isn’t coming after all. “You should call someone,” she says. Really? Isn’t that your one and only job? If your computer is down, shouldn’t you, a RESCUE-BASED ORGANIZATION, be the one company that actually has a generator, or an IT guy eating a sandwich in the back room, or an iPad? For heavens sakes. I wanted to slam down the receiver but of course this satisfaction died in the 80’s and we are left with furiously pushing the red button which is not at all satisfying.
This is an EPIC FAIL. I am on the side of the road in peril with nothing but old used granola bars and flat sparkling water. Here, I shall surely die. I consider ripping open a Christmas package that’s been sitting in my car to mail for two weeks and eat all the candy out of it to stay alive in the winter cold. It’s 46 degrees, which to a southerner like myself is akin to record low, blizzard-like conditions. I grab a swim towel from the back seat my son left after a swimming lesson and wrap it around me for warmth. I take a slug of flat sparkling water, because desperate times call for desperate measures.
My husband arrives to sit with me, although there’s nothing he can do except listen to me bitch about AAA. I call another tow truck, who tells me he’ll “be there in ten” although I know that’s a lie. He’s on a congested interstate and it will be another hour. My husband says he has to get to a meeting, which I’m not fine with because if I have to sit here until I face an inevitable hypothermic death I’d like to not die alone, but he leaves anyway. Life is a series of disappointments.
The tow truck guy shows up, who by now is my one and only friend and is with me there at the bitter end. I sit inside of his large heated cab while he hoists my vehicle on his truck like he’s throwing a baby on his back. As I’m sitting there, his cell phone rings. I can see it laying on the bench seat. It reads “DAD” and I almost pick it up to tell him that this man raised a son of worth – a man of value. A person who shows up when he’s supposed to. MY HERO. But I don’t and let it go to voicemail because that’s weird. Plus, I didn’t catch the tow truck guy’s actual name. I feel like by now we should know each other’s names.
So when we get to the auto body shop, it’s revealed that I’m simply out of gas. To be fair, my gas gauge was broken so how would I know? But it’s embarrassing to hear “your car stopped working because as it turns out, it can’t run on air. And your gauge is fried.”
Yeah? Well I can’t run on air either but I managed to sit there for three hours with nothing but a swim towel, fueling warmth solely by internalized anger toward AAA, with half of a granola bar.
But it turns out I didn’t die there on the pinky finger of the highway of dehydration. That would have been embarrassing. Except that I was wearing my nice boots, so if they hauled me off on a stretcher someone would think “Damn, she has great taste in footwear.” And you know what? That’s something.
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