Thursday, February 6, 2014

When the service truck–courtesy of a AAA membership I had fortuitously purchased just days before my trip–pulled up to my shitshow, I thought relief was at hand. Here was a qualified professional who was savvy to the secret lore of fixing flats, and what’s more, he had arrived a full 20 minutes before his scheduled time, likely spurred by my subtle questions to the dispatcher about best practices for avoiding death from the cold and traffic.

A man who bore a striking resemblance to Nick Nolte emerged from the truck and, after a brief exchange of pleasantries, set about his work, seemingly unfazed by the rush of cars no more than a few feet away. In any other situation, the process would’ve been fascinating to watch, except I wasn’t simply an observer here. I was the unfortunate schmuck on the side of the highway this time, the kind whom you drive by quickly with a mix of empathy and schadenfreude. Since the trunk had to be unloaded to get to the spare, the scene was decidedly wretched, with my belongings splayed all over the median and bathed under the pulsating light of my hazards.

After he had finished swapping tires, we shook, and then I tested out the car, only to hear a grinding noise. Driven by either southern hospitality or the cash tip, the Nolte of Birmingham crawled back under my car to diagnose, but there’s only so much you can illuminate with an undersized headlamp. We backed the car up, rolled it forward, turned the steering wheel both ways, and then repeated the process a few times, but in the end, the tire itself was deemed fine, and we parted ways–back to home for him, I presumed, and for me, the most harrowing part of the night.