To a few of you, in the past, I have joked about my having learned to drive a particular road in our community, which is riddled with pot-holes, rather smoothly. And this is amazing, considering the number of aforementioned pot-holes. I may have jokingly referred to my method of avoiding them as the "Pot-hole Avoidance Technique." There was even talk, between one particular sister-in-law and I, about offering an internet course on it.
To any of you who may be wondering, my technique will now surely be limited to teaching about pot-hole avoidance within city limits. The road between Our Town and The Next Town Over will surely not be on the list of "Guaranteed Successful Avoidance Parameters."
Let me explain.
I was driving with both kids to the gas station which is 15 minutes away. I made it there safely, coinciding, I might add, with my Practically Perfect driving record, which has never included any type of wreck. The man put my gas in, gave me a receipt. So far, so good. I start back, get out of the town, onto the LITTLE highway. Have I mentioned that two lanes are the size of one on most of y'all's side of the border? No shoulder, no room, no way.
I'm pretty used to it now, BUT here were the particular conditions:
Sunset, glare right in my eyes. Curving to the right. Cars on the same curve coming toward me. I slow down, hug to the right, and pray.
SLAM.
I was nicely on my side of the road, hit no cars, I simply hit a type of pothole that I couldn't see well. Not a complete hole, but right where a chunk of pavement is missing out of the edge of the road, about 1 foot in and about that long. It was not a friendly hole, and popped my tire immediately upon contact. Since I had thankfully slowed down to negotiate this curve and any potential road hogs that D has cautioned me about so many times, nothing happened but the sudden sluggishness that comes with a flat tire and I pulled right off into the dry weeds, got out and observed my predicament.
A Little Background:
Stake Conference Saturday. It was 5 minutes after 5:00pm, when the meeting started in the town I had just left for a lot of the priesthood leaders. Many of which had just passed me, and I had minutes ago observed that the last one to pass me must be late. My husband was already there. His father was already there. I hadn't told my mother-in-law I was going. I had left my cell phone home, because as a pre-pay minutes type of cell phone, it was useless, having no minutes. I was a little worried...
Within two minutes a little vehicle stopped, stuffed with people. A nice man about my age got out, asked me if I had a spare, and I had no clue. I looked around and concluded that I didn't. Even if I had, I had no jack, no wrench thingy, I was useless. He was going in the opposite direction of home to me, so we waited a couple of minutes for other options. I'll add that I was SO grateful at this point to know as much Spanish as I do.
One of the older sisters in our ward drove slowly by, and waved back at me as I frantically waved my arms for her to stop. At that point, I took the gentleman up on his offer of a ride to the chapel where my husband was, since it was on his way. He would have, I'm sure, taken me home, but was running low on gas. I felt quite safe with these people, as there were nice women my age and children with him. The older lady that was in the front passenger seat climbed into the back with the other 7 of them. At least 7. This was something smaller than, say, a Rodeo. T, J, and I sat in the front passenger seat. It was about 15 minutes to the chapel, where I found hubby in his meeting, and definitely surprised him.
He took us back to the van, and with the help of two other neighbors of ours that stopped to help, changed the tire. Yes, the tire was under the van (shrug).
I was still shaking when I got home, because it could have been so much worse. I'm glad I was going slow, I'm glad the van didn't do something crazy when the tire popped, I'm glad someone stopped SO soon, and that it was a vehicle full of kind, helpful people. Wow, it really affected me, nothing like that has ever happened to me before. So my prayers were answered.
The internet course is on hold indefinitely, and humanity in general, in my humble opinion, has gone up a notch.
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