AAA, an unedited excerpt from ebook 1 #Kindle

It was snowing and cold, with a below zero wind chill, the day Sandy was arriving at the Kent County Airport.

The morning was off to a late start, since I had a habit of drinking myself to sleep for fear of my nightmares but I had enough time to be where I needed to be to receive her.

It was a weekend, and there wasn’t much traffic, as I headed onto the highway from Coopersville.

As I went along at sixty miles per hour, in the 1986 Ford Econoline 150, (without a blower motor working to get heat in the rig), I noticed the engine temperature gauge quickly climbing past the normal operating range. It steadily climbed further and further until a loud popping sound, followed by a cloud escaping from the hood, forced me to pull over.

It wasn’t even two miles since I had merged onto the East bound lane of I-96. Now, I was broke down, parked at a most inconvenient time.

My heart started racing because I knew that I was going to be late now because of it.

Knowing how Sandy had just been dealing with a very bad situation in her life, it wasn’t hard to understand that she was going to be quite cranky and unyielding, especially since it was a little too early for the airline stewardesses to be serving drinks on the flight.

When I got out to look at the radiator, there was slush inside of it, and, the radiator hose had popped off of the water pump flowing into the top of the radiator.

The first thoughts I had were, that there wasn’t enough antifreeze in it, or that the thermostat was bad but I saw the disconnected hose and reattached it, thinking that it was just not tight enough.

The antifreeze was low for sure now, since it had blown out of the hose, and, the fact that there was slush inside told me that it was definitely in need of being drained and filled back up with the correct amount of antifreeze.

The gauge fell after twenty minutes, so I tried to start the van again but it wouldn’t go. I kept cranking the starter until the battery lost most of its power to turn it.

My cellular phone was going to be handy now, along with my AAA auto insurance- with roadside assistance.

This wasn’t the right time to be putting the service to the test but I was about to find out how reliable AAA, and my cell phone, would be in this circumstance.

Making a call that took me through an automated answering service, finally, took me to a service representative whom asked a series of questions, and if I could be put on hold while the few cars that were on the road passed me by.

As I explained that I was using a cell phone, and, that I would rather not be put on hold. The person heard no part of my statement. I began to hear the sounds of recorded music through the earpiece- getting an earful of Yanni.

The call was dropped within six bars of the music score.

Making the call again, I was reconnected with the same person I had spoken to. She got on her computer and started locating a tow truck in my area, placing me on hold again, as my battery showed the symbol of battery life dwindling.

Several minutes turned to half an hour, while my cell phone battery petered out to a trickle.

The call was lost again.

The third time I called, I was told that the tow trucks were all busy, and, that it would be three hours before one could be dispatched to aide me.

Now my phone was dead and I couldn’t plug it in to the accessory power outlet because the battery was too low in the van.

Lighting another cigarette, and working myself into a panic, I tried the van again but got only two full cranks on the motor before it started clicking again, the way Fords do.

I turned the key off, and hoped it would recharge itself enough to start it.

Now my bladder is full, my feet are freezing, my phone is dead, and, my mother and friends are all within six miles of me.

Help is all around me but there is no way to get to them.

I can hear Sandy screaming at me in my head, assuming that I had, “been up partying all night.”

Just then an Ottawa County Road Commission truck is coming up behind me in the distance. He is scraping the roadways, and dressing the ramps with the salt and sand mixture that they use.

The truck pulled right up behind me and stopped.

A man got out and approached my vehicle. He had stopped to offer some help.

Thank God for the few good people there seem to be left in the world.

Explaining what had happened to the van, he said that it had just frozen up in the radiator because of the wind chill, and, that it sometimes happens to their rigs, which is why they put the covers over the grill in the winter. Then, telling me to try it again- that it would probably start, which it did.

Relieved, and late, I thanked him for stopping to offer help, resuming my mission to the airport.

All I could do was continue on my mission, while thinking that this was a great way to start the day, and, to begin Sandy’s new Homecoming Celebration.

Too bad my phone had died. She could have called me to find out what had happened.

I limped the van all the way to the airport, which seemed like a hundred miles away but it was closer to sixty, only stopping once, at a filling station, to check the fluid in the radiator.

Finally, pulling up in front of the area where people wait with their luggage, and, for their transportation to arrive, it was pretty difficult for me to discern that it was Sandy standing there among a small group of people.

The scowl on her face had distorted her from recognizable, having never seen her face contorted in such a way.

Most of the individuals she was standing among were women, who, judging by the looks on their faces, were forced to endure listening to an authoritative tirade of explicatives about me the whole time.

She was heavily cloaked in anger and vehemence, sharing the heaviness of it with me exclusively, now that we were alone- while all I could do was nothing but sit still to endure her expressions until the opportunity finally arose to make amends enough to offer my apologies without triggering more negative energy.

Having thought little enough about the situation to ask me what had happened, she assumed I had been flying high and was unable to get up to handle my responsibilities.

Sandy would hear nothing of my situation with the truck and kept screaming to be sure of it, berating me most of the way home.

It was odd that it was so normal because here I am grown up, beyond the physical control of my father but still in an environment that was identical to what I had experienced throughout my life.

It seems we don’t feel normal unless we are receiving that type of treatment to which we have been oriented.

Things only softened up after stopping at a liquor store, and, she smoked some weed but how soft…. I didn’t save any mental notes about that.