When we left our heroes they were stranded on the side of Pennsylvania State Road 283, just outside of Lancaster, with no engine, no air conditioning, and deflating hopes. Dylan had been napping until this point, but noticing that the car was stopped and the temperature was rising, he was beginning to wake up.
As we sat waiting for the return call from the towing service, we decided to open some doors to let some air flow through. Windows aren't an option because they're electric. We opened the two passenger-side doors, to avoid catching any passing traffic on the drivers side and making an already frustrating situation worse; and the added highway noise settled it: Dylan was going to wake up.
*Bzzzzt* A phone call. The computer was calling to let me know they had found a tow truck for us. Wonderful! It would be here in half an hour, and we would be on our merry way.
About this time we realized that the towing service neglected to ask how many people were stranded, and if any of us had special needs. And I'd say a car seat qualifies as special needs. I called back and informed them that we had an infant and would need the tow truck to have room for 2 adult passengers and the car seat. This, of course, posed a problem. Apparently people with children never break down. The dispatcher told me she would try to find a truck that could fit us, and call me back. We were happy that they were willing to accommodate us, but not at all happy when she called back.
"Can one of you hold the baby?"
"Um… NO! Not only is that illegal, which I might be willing to overlook considering our circumstances, but it's incredibly dangerous, and not something I'm willing to do with an infant… let alone my own son! I appreciate you trying to find something that works for us, but that just won't cut it." I'm sure those weren't my exact words, but it's close enough, and if anything I've made myself sound less like a jerk, which is a win for me. If she doesn't like that, she can tell it her way on her blog.
Deciding that it would be basically impossible to find a tow truck with room for all of us, we decided to try and find a way to split up. Having just established that the Darts were out of town for the weekend, we thought about who else might be close enough and available to help us. My mom was on her way to the same family gathering, wouldn't have to go too far out of her way to get to us, and was planning to spend the night at our house afterwards anyway, so I called her and asked her to pick up Megan and Dylan, and head to the party — I would meet up with them after getting the car fixed. *Bzzzzt* another phone call. "Gotta go mom. I'll call you back in a few."
The dispatcher was calling to let me know that she was having trouble finding a tow truck that could take us all, but wasn't giving up.
Since he's awake anyway, and the temperature inside the car is starting to reach uncomfortable levels — even for people who have lived without air conditioning all summer — we decided to sit on the barrier on the road side, to at least get some semi-fresh, semi-cool air while we wait.
*Bzzzz* My phone vibrates just as I'm about to get out of the car to go around and take Dylan's car seat out. "Hello? Hello! HellOOO!! HELLLLLOOOOooooOOO!!!!!" Don't you just love it when computers don't realize it's their turn to talk? Granted, there was plenty of traffic noise, even with the doors shut, but you'd think they would have road-tested this. Eventually the computer answers and lets me know that we should have been called with a tow-service provider, phone number, and estimated time of arrival by now. If not, I should call them and let them know. Obviously, the computer is mistaken — my situation is a little more complex than the average job, I guess. "Whatever, they'll figure it out" I think to myself.
While I sat in the quiet of the car and waited for the computer on the other end of the phone to calculate the meaning of life between syllables, Megan took Dylan out of the car found a semi-shady spot to sit him.
*Knock knock knock* "Someone's pulling up. It doesn't look like a tow truck. Come out here." Megan was worried — as I might have been were I in her position — that the driver of the gigantic red SUV slowly pulling up behind us would be an axe murderer, or a belt-sander murderer, or a Jehovah's Witness. I joined her, deciding that we would suffer the same fate.
*Bzzzzt* My phone again. Same number. New information? Sadly, no. It's the same computer, with the same hearing impediment, and the same information. "Hmmm, must be some sort of glitch. Why would it call me twice? Whatever… twice is better than not at all!" The woman from the SUV had parked behind us and introduced herself to Megan while I held my phone in one hand and made the "yeah, yeah, uh-huh, uh-huh, I already know all of this" hand motions with my free hand.
As luck would have it, she was none of these things. She was a very nice lady — a mother of four, or twelve, or seventy. I don't recall exactly. She said she saw Megan and Dylan on the side of the road and couldn't bear the thought that she might be stuck out here with no way to get help, so she circled back to see if she might be of some assistance.
After some discussion about how we ended up stuck on the side of the road, and how we were waiting for the towing company to find a tow truck with room for the three of us, she offered to give Megan and Dylan a ride to Pep Boys, so that I could stay behind with the car and meet a standard tow truck.
We considered our options carefully. Could she be trusted? She said she was Mormon, and she seemed nice enough — well dressed, all of her teeth in tact, no obvious blood stains on her clothes (you know, from the belt sander…). Of course, saying you're Mormon doesn't make you Mormon, so we demanded to see her special undergarments as proof. Actually, we didn't, but it would have been mildly amusing and would probably have scared her off if we had; so it's better that we didn't. Eventually we decided that she seemed trustworthy enough, though, so we agreed to the ride and thanked her graciously.
I called off my mom, telling her that a woman had offered to give Megan and Dylan a ride; and then called the towing service to let them know they could send a standard truck.
It was pretty obvious that our volunteer was a mom when we started loading Dylan's car seat into her car. She had to spend a minute throwing toys and assorted clutter over the seat into the trunk, she had a couple of car seats of her own, and there were easily — and this is a rough estimate — six or seven boxes of Cheerios opened and carefully deposited between seat cushions and ground into the carpet.
As I was strapping Dylan's car seat into her car, my phone rang two more times, again with the same information as the first time. This is getting out of hand.
I reminded Megan to call 911 before she called me if anything were to happen, double checked that she had her cell phone and purse, and kissed her and Dylan goodbye, for what I hoped was not the last time. They all waved goodbye, and I took a seat next to the lifeless car on the side of the highway.
The computer called me again, this time with information on the new tow truck I could expect. Then it called me back another 3 times, in case I had forgotten in the forty seconds since we last spoke. I assured the computer that it was a worthless and annoying waste of scrap metal, that I would belt-sand the faces off of its programmers if I ever met them, and started ignoring its calls.
The tow truck driver called and told me he should arrive in 20-30 minutes to pick me up. 45 minutes later, he arrived. Towing was rather uneventful. He winched the car up onto the back of his truck, and drove the car and I to Pep Boys. For lack of anything else to talk about, we chatted about the irregularity of my situation — needing a tow truck with room for a car seat — and about our kids. He has a half-daughter that's a few years old.
He dropped me off in front of, and the car off behind Pep Boys, and met me inside with the key. I tipped him a few bucks and thanked him for helping. I'm not positive, but this may have been the last service-person of average intelligence we ran into for the day.
I found Dylan's car seat in the waiting room, but Dylan and Megan were nowhere to be found. After completing a circuit of the store to make sure they weren't taking a keep-the-infant-from-getting-bored tour, I called her cell phone. She answered. Phew. Just a diaper change. We were reunited after a minute, and both breathed a huge sigh of relief.
The chairs in the waiting room were uncomfortable, but there was air conditioning. The TV seemed to have signal problems causing the audio to cut in and out every few seconds, but there was air conditioning. And it was a busy day, it would take them over an hour to promise us that the car would be diagnosed within an hour, and to lose our paperwork and do nothing with the car.
In the meantime, we went to the only place within walking distance with the promise of food, a Weis grocery store. The sandwich counter, as they always seem to be in grocery stores, was all but un-manned; and the girl that was working there seemed to be hard of hearing and in the middle of a Prozac overdose. We cancelled half the order, picked up a pre-made sandwich to save ourselves an hour, and headed for the cafe area at the front of the store where there were some tables.
After lunch, we headed back to Pep Boys to check on our car. It had been the requested hour since we dropped the car off, and since they had forgotten it existed, we helped them find the paperwork and were satisfied (enough) to be promised that we would be the next car pulled into the garage. But did I mention they had air conditioning? Half an hour later we had a diagnosis, and 30 minutes and $180 after that we were back on the road.
We made quick work of the remaining stretch of road between us and the party, and spent the rest of the evening catching up with family and being amazed at how big each other's kids were getting.
Suffice it to say, if your car is dead in the garage when you're ready to leave for a road trip; I recommend you take the other car.
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