January 3, 2021

Being the road warriors we are, my husband and I burn up the roads with what we call “microwave trips”, 2-3 day trips usually a couple of hours or less from home. This was a much longer trip, 10 days between Christmas and New Years. A longer leisurely trip with plenty of fun and relaxing time. Imagine our surprise an hour into the ride back home on New Years Day to see one of our tires was extremely low. Having just left a gas station, we turned right back around only to discover we have a serious leak in our back drivers side tire, that quickly turned to a flat tire. As we were coming home from a 10 day vacation, our trunk packed to the brim. We are looking like the Beverly Hillbillies with all our luggage, ice chest, coats and various other stuff sitting beside the car while we get the jack and spare tire out. My sweet husband with his newly acquired English riding cap which keeps popping off his head while he tried to jack the car up. I wasn’t helping the matter with my pacing and suggestions, so I decided chocolate was in order and after one more minor attempt to help, I went back into the store for ice cream on the pretense I was going to get more help.

Coming out sucking my delicious, decadent, vanilla dipped in carmel and chocolate bar thinking this is a great sugar high only to see my proud husband has the car jacked up and the tire off, English riding cap still upon his head. It appears he is taking a break, and thank God, as we were talking the car fell off the jack or the jack fell, I am not sure which. We looked at each other stunned and yet thankful he hadn’t been under it when it fell. As we were deciding what to do next, after hour of fooling with this, finally a young man offer to help. He has a big truck so I am thinking surely he will have a better jack and knowledge only to be dismayed when he pulled out another wimp-ass jack from his super truck which also the car fell off once he got it jacked up.

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By now, my sweet English riding cap husband was fed up and starting calling towing companies…I had called tire companies, I must admit his idea better. Thankfully he checked their google rating before he called, more about that later, someone answered and said they could come right away. About 10 minutes later, a big gold Tacoma pulls up, older fella gets out drinking a coke, not diet coke mind you, real men drink coke, and says he a is friend of the tow truck driver, heard the call come in, and thought he’d come help him. Thought to myself, that is nice. A few minutes later, a clean truck, not new, but very clean, with what you would consider a good ole boy in Mississippi. We got a good vibe from him considering the look but best of all he had a huge brand new jack that practically raised the car itself and we beamed. He got that thing out, skillfully placed it under the car, jacked it up in seconds, got the tire off and put our skinny, skimpy tire that came with the car all in about 5 minutes. Then we all looked in big letters on the skimpy tire it read “DO NOT GO OVER 50 MINUTES AN HOUR WITH THIS TIRE”. The buddy drinking the coke driving the Tacoma said “Ya’ll ain’t gonna get to Jackson on that tire”. Deflated we looked at them and they said follow us to the guy with the big jacks place. So here we go following this black truck ….now remember we had a good vibe and a good google rating, so we felt ok, but I gotta tell you when we drove up, I got alittle nervous. Rickety gate that thankfully opened electronically, house trailer to the right, not sure it was habitable, then down a gravel road to an huge outdoor shed, imagine a barn without doors. There were un-driveable cars, trucks, campers everywhere. It looked like a graveyard for broken down cars and trucks. We followed the truck until he motioned for us to pull right up to the barn. It was then that I asked my husband what the B plan was. Here we are someone’s property out in nowhere Mississippi with two men we don’t know. No-one knows we are here. My husband mumbles, there is no plan….so I get out of the car confidently like I go to rural junk yards all the time and so does my husband with his laid back hippy cool self.

The guy in the Tacoma has gone around back to look at the other dead car to get a tire that will at least get us home to Jackson. The guy in the black truck quickly gets his nice, fast jack out of his truck and proceeds to take our whimpy ass spare tire that can only go 50 miles per house off our car. His efficiency and quickness help my husband and I relax a bit. Next thing we know his Tacoma buddy drive up with sure enough another tire. To watch this two work together, quickly and efficiently was special, there was a special bond between them, a brotherhood. When the Tacoma old man couldn’t fit one piece of the the tire into the device, the younger, truck driving man took over. It was like they had been changing tires and tinkering with cars together forever. Reminded me of my mom’s dad, a nurseryman in a rural Ohio who could fix anything, especially his old tractor. They finally got our tire inflated and now it was time to get it on our car. The younger truck driving dude literally rolled it over to our car, got his drill that put the bolts off and on quicker than I had ever seen and laid down to adjust something. It was then that I had to look away. Literally his crack to his butt was visible, a good ways visible. He was so focused on what he was doing I don’t think he even realized and none of the other men present thought to tell him. I guess that would have been awkward to tell him, but a girl would have told a girl. I had to look away.

Back to rolling the tire to the car. Boy did that bring up an old, old memory. My brother was very young, probably around 5 or 6 and we lived in the suburbs of Atlanta which back then used to be rather rural. Our neighbors a couple of doors down had these old tires which their sons and my brother would get into more mischief with. One time in particular, these enterprising young boys thought it would be a grand idea to drag several of the tires up our driveway, we had a steep incline, then let them go down the driveway into the cul de sac where they would jump, twirl, spin and eventually fall out. This brought them hours of giggles and fun until one of the tires went gracefully down our driveway, into the cul de sac, then over to his buddy’s yard, then down the side of the yard, went low as steep as our driveway was high, speed up, then hit the main gas line for the neighborhood, whereas gas quickly filled up the air. Needless to say their tire rolling days were over. Funny how the guy fixing our tire triggered that old memory by simply rolling the tire to our car.

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So here we are with a tire that will get us home, it looks brand new, but not the same as the other tires that I had just purchased 4 new ones two weeks earlier. We pay our butt cheek exposing tow truck, tire changing, fixing guy with cash. We all load up in our vehicles and start the assembly line down the driveway to leave. Tacoma, Chevy Truck and Hyundai. As we turn back onto the main road, I took a deep breath of relief and gave myself some anti - anxiety med, and laid the passenger seat way back, to take a siesta from my mind.