By Mary C. Tillotson
I've seen the "7QT Friday" on blogs here and there. These aren’t as quick as I was hoping, but here are seven
quick takes for – Wednesday!
#1
A couple weeks ago, on a Thursday, I took our car into the
shop because it was squealing, clunking, and shining a light on the dashboard.
Our mechanic (who I’d highly recommend to anyone in the area) gave me three or
four diagnoses, so I planned to drop off the car Monday for a marathon of fixing
and replacing.
On Friday at about 4:45 p.m., I got stranded in the Staples
parking lot because – what do you know? – the car didn’t start. I did not want to call my husband – it was the
second day in a row he’d stayed home sick and
he was gearing up for a Sunday flight to Vermont for a five-day conference, so
he didn’t need one more thing on his plate. But what else was I going to do?
A couple friends picked him up, and they met us at Staples.
Fortunately, our car is a stick-shift (I never thought I would say that) so we
were able to bump-start it, which involves pushing it till it’s rolling at a
walking speed and letting the clutch out quickly.
We thanked our friends, drove home, and parked on a hill so
we could bump-start it ourselves and drop it off the mechanic on Saturday, adding
“replace starter” to our already expensive litany. We walked from the mechanic to
our church for Saturday evening Mass, bummed a ride home from some neighbors,
and found a friend to drive my husband to the airport at about 7:30 Sunday
morning.
It was stressful and frustrating, but nothing extraordinary.
This sort of thing happens to everyone. As I started catching my breath after
it all, I wondered: what if I had been sick, too? What if we’d had two kids
under the age of three? What if we were new to the area and didn’t have local friends
we were comfortable asking for help? None of that would be out of the ordinary,
either. Then I thought: How on earth do other
adults handle situations like this?!?
Then I found my answer: imperfectly.
That’s how other adults handle situations like this. That’s how we handled ours,
and how we’re likely to handle similar situations in the future.
It was an
oddly freeing discovery.
