That’s right. I have reduced the entirety of yesterday into a ginsu knife infomercial.
Picking up at 8:15, where our little melodrama left off, the Universe amped up the stress at work. Imagine sitting in your little cube, whilst whispers of your Little Boss, his Big Boss, and his BigBig Boss swirl around you. You hear references to an account you manage, a failed audit, and most incriminatingly, your name. No one addresses you directly, but it seems clear that there is a problem, and someone (who!?!?) thinks it is because of something you did or failed to do. Makes you feel confident and secure, particularly in this stellar economy, no? (By the end of the day all is well, the problem is linked to a software error, I was exonerated and there were many apologies for freaking me the hell out, but it was quite a workday nonetheless!)
So I bail. I have to pee like mad, but frankly am just thinking about getting the hell out of the building, so I just get in the car and drive off. Tooling down the highway at 65ish MPH (perhaps faster, though I cannot commit to that here because I will not confirm my alleged lead-footedness in writing), I felt a quick shimmy of the steering wheel, then feel and hear a huge explosion, and then lose control of the car. I slowed down and wrestled the car over to the shoulder to compose myself and take stock. Well, that was the plan, but I soon realize that the shoulder of a highway at the beginning edge of rush hour isn’t exactly the safest place for that sort of thing. I can’t even get out of the car safely, much less do anything about the situation. So I flip on the hazards, gingerly head across the divider to the exit ramp, and limp the car over to a shopping center under construction and pull off to the side. Have I mentioned my abject fear of car problems and my terror of driving a somehow disabled car yet? Or that I spent the entire drive shouting “DO you not SEE that my car is BROKEN!” at the cars whizzing by me?
I start to call…………well, everyone. Cliff? No answer. My sister and mom are working out, so no answer. Cliff again, no answer. Text him with an admittedly dramatic “Tire exploded. Call ASAP” in an effort to spur action on his part. Yeah, it was ridiculously over the top, but I didn’t go with the heartstopper “Think I am in labor” so I’m giving myself a pass on it. Call my other sister, who works across the highway, to see if she can send a coworker to help me with the spare. She is headed into some mandatory meeting with all her officemates, so no luck there. Call Cliff again, no response. (Yeah, the incessant calls probably were obnoxious. But typically I am more than capable of throwing on the spare tire and was frustrated to need to rely on rescue, plus I was more than a little freaked out by the whole event, plus I STILL had to pee, plus with everything else going on, I felt like the sheer fact that I wasn’t crying in a heap on the side of the road a real accomplishment.)
BTW, where are the Good Samaritans, you are probably asking yourself. Umm, the WHO? I was on the side of the road for about an hour, near a busy construction site where probably 100 (presumably handy, mechanically able bodied) men drove past me, slowing down to gawk at the gigantic pregnant person and her obviously disabled car, and the ONLY person who stopped was some sort of foreman or something who came by on his little golf cart to ask me to move the car. Not to offer aid, not to change the tire, not even to offer to call someone for me. Just “Hey, can you move the car.” He’s damn lucky he was too big for me to stuff his body in the wheel well where the spare was. Damn lucky. Do people just not care anymore? Do they just assume someone else helped? Was it the cankles that scared them off? Do I even want to know?
Cliff finally returns my call(s). He gets me hooked up with the number to roadside assistance, and assures me he’s on his way. It will be about an hour because he’s across town, but he’s coming. I call Geico, and I have to say, they could not have been nicer. First things first they made sure I was ok.
“Ma’am, are you injured? Are you medically stable?”
“Well, I am 8 months pregnant and stranded and I have to pee, so I wouldn’t say stable.”
That poor 17 year old boy working the call center. He took that in stride, dear boy, and got me hooked up with Pop A Lock to change the tire instead of making me wait like 2 hours for a tow truck, which was his original plan. They show up in like 30 minutes, were wonderful, and leave me to drive on the freaking donut (have I mentioned my loathing of driving disabled vehicles?) to the tire place where I get some bladder relief, Cliff meets me and takes over the car situation and I grab his keys to get Drew from school.
Get Drew, get Cliff, pay $500 for 4 new tires, meet Cliff’s cousin and her son for dinner (yeah, on top of everything, wrestling a 3 year old in a restaurant! Yay!), get home, pass out.
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