Another friend and car story. March 7, 2008
Thursday evenings during Lent my church has been having a lecture series centered around the book “The Children of Abraham” by F. E. Peters. We’ve had a Rabbi, a retired Episcopal Bishop and a Muslim Imam (sp?) speaking. It’s been fascinating, and I was hoping to come home after last night’s lecture and write something terribly spiritual and enlightened. But my car died again yesterday and I was far too irritated to be either spiritual or enlightened. I did make it to the lecture (only 15 minutes late, and having missed the dinner beforehand), and perhaps I’ll have another post shortly about that. As I said, I was feeling neither spiritual or enlightened. Although I did feel better after than I had before.
So basically what we have here is another car story.
As I was attempting to leave work yesterday, I discovered that my wonderful little Jeep (as yet, still unnamed; I’m thinking “bitch” or “stupid” or something along those lines……) absolutley refused to start. No, I did NOT leave the lights on, or anything else for that matter.One of my coworkers, C drove me over to security to ask for a jump start. Thank you, C. Security started my car, and I was on my merry little way to pick up the dudes. I’d have plenty of time to get them home and fed before I headed up to church for the lecture. So I get on the 51 and I notice the radio flickering in and out, so I get off the 51 at Thomas Rd and 20th st. I decide to turn left, but “stupid” decided that was positively out of the question, and proceeded to die. In the left turn lane. Jjust after the off ramp. In rush hour traffic. Thrill a minute, let me tell you! So here I am, pissing so very many people off! First thing I do is call my dad, who reminds me that I have a AAA card. Duh! So I call them, and bless their hearts, if they don’t send someone out quickly to get me out of the road. But it does take about 20 minutes, during which, as I stick my arm out the window and try to wave people around me, I get honked at, flipped off, yelled at etc. What, exactly, would they have me do? Get out and do a little dance? I did not, by the way do a little dance. Instead, I call my good friend J, who I’m sure you remember from a previous episode. I had no clue where to tow the vehicle since my guy retired (thank you, City of Phoenix, for taking a quarter of their property for the light rail, thus depriving me of a trusted mechanic!), so of course I call the one person who will know, J. And I wake her up. Nice of me, huh! She works graveyard shift. Being the wonderful person that she is, she not only got up to give me the info that I needed, she called them to say I was coming, AND met me over there to give me a ride back. What service! On top of that, the folks at the repair shopt STAYED LATE TO WAIT FOR ME! Could not believe it. Some people are so wonderful. Anyway, one more bit to the story. While I’m sitting in a dead car in the middle of rush hour getting flipped off and honked at, there was one person who stopped to see if I needed help. One. A homeless guy. Someone who has absolutely nothing other than what is on his back stopped and offered to help. May God bless him. All the people in fancy-schmancy cars….no offers of help. A homeless guy. Willing to give. I already had help on the way, but I was touched that he was willing to try. So God bless J, M & B (repair shop guys), the homeless guy, and last but not least, Dad. I’m driving his 1968 Beetle for the moment! It’s a fun car, and I look cute in it!
