To the Rescue

Wednesday, July 5, 2023

The last of the guests left about 11pm last night. Keith practiced a bit and I played on my phone. About 11:30, we played the game where he reminds me that the POTD exists. After that, we were walking up the stairs, talking about what a great, big day it had been and how tired we were. Keith stopped and said, “Uh oh.”

I turned around. “What uh oh? No uh oh. Don’t say uh oh when I am tired. It is the same as saying it is garbage night when I am already too tired. It is very stressful.” (I do not ever take out the garbage to the street. Garbage night should have no impact on me AT ALL, but pretty much every week just after I get into bed, Keith remembers he has to take the garbage to the curb and announces it. I have a visceral response to the horror of having to move after I am in bed – knowing full well that I DON’T HAVE TO DO ANYTHING. It is weird yet happens nearly every week.)

“Mary just texted that Rachel ran out of gas on I-494 and can we get her some gas?”

Oh! Actual uh oh.

We turned around and went back down the stairs. Keith texted Mary back, but we didn’t get a response. I said to call. Remember calling? I’m really old school – when I need information right now, I am going to call. I assured Keith calling was alright, even at midnight, because if your kid needs help, you are not sleeping. (It’s occurring to me right now that Mary didn’t call us. She should have called. Five more minutes and we would not have gotten a text. If you need help, you need to call. So what if we were sleeping? Help was needed. It really wasn’t optional.) We didn’t have Rachel’s number. Mary filled us in that Rachel had the added disaster of realizing that she had forgotten her wallet as she was stuck on the side of the highway, her phone was almost dead, and that she had called 911 and a trooper was on her way. Keith texted Rachel and we sat down to wait. It didn’t take too long to hear that the trooper had arrived, but we still needed to bring gas. We got the specifics on location and set off.

We zoomed along in the night – not much traffic that time of night – listening to our audiobook. We got gas – happy to find that our local SuperAmerica (wait. It changed names about 5 years ago. It is now something else. Or did it change to SuperAmerica five years ago? I do not remember. It is not a Sinclair station – the one with the green dinosaur. I love that dinosaur. Anyway, it is a gas station of some name [Keith edit: Speedway]) is open very late, or maybe always. As we approached the target location we were happy to see the trooper had put out flares on the road, clearing the right lane. Keith had been clever enough to ask the officer where he should park, and he pulled in appropriately. I stepped out to take the potd and quickly got back in the car. I didn’t want to be stupid-woman-hit-on-highway-while-taking-a-picture. I heard Rachel try to start her car and it didn’t turn over the first time. Uh oh. It worked on the second try, and we were on our way home. Rachel texted later that she got home safely (and she beat us home by about a minute).

I like to think that listening to our audiobook (Tom Felton’s Beyond the Wand, the magic and mayhem of growing up a wizard) helped Keith stay awake and be entertained, because otherwise all I provided was someone next to him yawning so many times.