I was on track to be in the office by 7:30 the morning before Thanksgiving. The wife and kids had the day off, so there were no distractions, delays or missing socks to deal with at home. I was approaching an intersection and moving into the left turn lane when something caught my eye on the opposite side of the road.
Hazard lights flashed on a small pickup truck. The driver was trying to push it off the road — and by “off the road,” I mean to the entrance of a shopping center more than 100 yards away.
I stopped at the light and glanced back, assuming someone would stop to help the guy. Apparently everyone who was eastbound on University Boulevard at 6:45 a.m. had a very important appointment they couldn’t be late for. Or maybe they were afraid that the Dunkin’ Donuts a few blocks away would run out of pumpkin muffins or Munchkins. Because no one stopped.
It was a small truck. A Ford Ranger, I believe. But it’s not easy to push and steer at the same time. So the poor guy’s forward pace was somewhere between post-op heart patient using a walker, and me at the end of a 5k.
He was on track to reach the McDonald’s parking lot by Black Friday.
Click on the image to enlarge it and see where I was when I spotted the truck.
So when the light turned green, I did a U-turn, parked in the right lane behind the powerless pickup, snapped on my hazards, and hopped out to help push. By working together, we picked up the pace and quickly made it to the parking lot. That’s when I became aware of a road-grading characteristic that’s not typically a factor when you’re behind the wheel of a fully functioning vehicle.
That little swale at the entrance to a parking lot turns into the Snake River Canyon when you try to push a truck full of roofing material across it. After some rocking (my suggestion, thank you very much), we gathered enough momentum to get past our obstacle.
Take THAT, Evel Knievel!
We pushed on for the final 50 feet into a parking spot and took a well-deserved breather. That’s when Roofer Guy told me his transmission was shot. All this time I assumed he was out of gas, but that wasn’t it at all.
RG knew the transmission was about to go. He already bought a rebuilt unit, and planned on taking the truck to his transmission guy after work on this very day. English is not RG’s first language, so I missed some of what he said. I caught something about how he already called The Boss to let him know what happened. And there was another bit about a tow truck that would take his truck to the transmission place if necessary.
I was a little distracted by that point because I remembered that my van was 150 yards down the road … unlocked … with my laptop backpack on the back seat.
I’m not much of a worrier, and I really wasn’t very concerned about anyone walking off with my laptop. The bigger issue was that some hungry soul barreling down University toward her pumpkin muffin might slam into the sexy Caravan if she didn’t notice my hazard lights. It would suck to kill one driver while trying to help another.
As I was about to walk away, RG “God blessed” me a couple times and then reached into his pocket.
“Here, here. Let me …”
Right away I put up my hand in protest.
“No. I can’t take anything from you. I was glad to help. Seriously. You don’t owe me a thing.”
But RG continued.
“Here, here. Let me show you.”
He pulled a business card out of his pocket.
“See. I even have a card for the tow truck. I was ready for this.”
RG looked pretty confused by that point. I’m sure he was bewildered by the gringo who had an aversion to looking at a business card. Probably figured it was some odd phobia exclusive to middle-aged white guys.
Yes, RG. You were ready for this. And now I’m ready to crawl under a rock.
