“In a Dark Place We Find Ourselves"
I was really surprised at the number of good Samaritans who offered to help us and it really kind of renewed my faith in the human condition. The tow truck finally arrived about 45 minutes later and slowly tugged the beached grey monster onto its silvery back. We signed some papers and confirmed the final destination in Pryor, promised to pay them one of our collective kidneys, and WHOOSH! Off they went!
Well, I talked Robin into riding over to Tulsa with me yesterday and, while we were rocketing down 244 toward the Harvard exit, the truck experienced what seemed like a backfire, then another little hiccup, and eventually we found ourselves stranded at an intersection at Yale and 244!
Cars were speeding off the exit-ramp and having to go around us, stalled at the intersection, while we frantically dialed the State Farm roadside assistance digital voice merry-go-round. It was kind of dangerous, I’m not going to lie because of the amount of traffic that kept surging by us at every change of the light.
We actually had one guy come over to the truck from the Quick Trip parking lot and offer to help push us (by hand) out of the intersection. But, even though I tried to help him, the power steering wasn’t cooperating without the engine running and we had to maneuver two 90 degree turns to get the two-ton behemoth into the Quick Trip parking lot.
Needless to say, that didn’t work because on top of being extremely dangerous for us being exposed to off-coming traffic, the fact that the wheels wouldn’t work as desired made it even more so and the whole plan was scrapped in favor of just waiting for the tow truck to arrive.
I was really surprised at the number of good Samaritans who offered to help us and it really kind of renewed my faith in the human condition.
The tow truck finally arrived about 45 minutes later and slowly tugged the beached grey monster onto its silvery back. We signed some curious-looking papers and confirmed the final destination of the spent beast in Pryor, promised to pay them one of our collective kidneys, and WHOOSH! Off they went!
While waiting for them to get there, we had called a relative from Pryor to come and pick us up because we couldn’t really ride in the tow truck because of liability (and space) issues. So, for about another half hour we waited inside the Quick Trip by the entryway where it was warm and passed the time looking like the panhandlers waiting at the street corners - only without signs.
Robin had taken her place on the floor and had laid out a blanket for Sabrina to lay on. One patron of the store actually came by and offered Robin some folded paper money and stated that Sabrina had “reeled” him in!
Robin explained that we were just waiting for a ride and that we didn’t really need his offering but thanked him anyway. The man (who was riding an early model Road King by the way) explained his intentions and that he had a soft spot for little dogs and that is why he decided to offer the money.
Robin just told him thanks but we were really okay and that his heart was in the right place. As I had mentioned previously, my faith in humanity during this crisis had been bolstered and renewed when I observed the kindness of people who were offering to help without any expectations in return.
There was actually one young lady who had stopped while we were still waiting with the truck just to check and make sure we were okay. She appeared to be by herself and evidently was just checking to see if we needed to make a phone call or whatever but it was just this small act of kindness that seemed so amazing to me.
My mom finally got to us and I am glad she made it without any difficulty. I was hesitant to call her because she is not a spring chicken anymore and I wouldn't have been able to live with myself if anything had happened to her while she was out trying to do a good deed for us.
But, everything turned out okay and we were even able to complete our initial goal of finding the north east Tulsa Community College campus where I will be teaching fundamental writing this spring semester. The original plan was to drive to Tulsa and to the TCC north east campus to get an idea of the time frame of how long it would take to drive it from Pryor.
On this occasion, the trip wound up being about three or so hours with a price tag of over two hundred dollars – and counting. I’m just hoping any subsequent trips will be much less involved and promise to be a more manageable commute.