Suzy Says

And I thought I had a rough day yesterday…

My brother, sister and I have a tradition* of calling each other when we get home from a visit. Emptying out the storage doesn’t exactly qualify as a “visit”, but we still agreed to call each other. I knew it would take my brother at least an hour longer to get home than it would me, since he had a longer way to go and had to drive the loaded-up truck slooowly on the two lane corkscrew known officially as Route 128. I was a little concerned about his driving the truck all Clampetted up like that, but he said that after driving a fire truck so long, it would be like driving a sports car.

I had put on my PJs, nuked dinner, and was well into a bottle of wine when I thought he’d be home. I called his cell and it went straight to voicemail. I wasn’t worried, because of the total lack of cell phone service for most of 128. When the phone rang half an hour later, I thought it would be him.

It wasn’t.

It was my sister, working the night shift, telling me that the truck broke down near the thriving metropolis of Navarro (population 130). He managed to stop it on the shoulder and hitch a ride to Navarro, where the driver provided him with a beer and a cigarette and went on his way, leaving my brother to call AAA from a pay phone.

Now, Navarro used to be a slightly scary place, appearing to be populated entirely by meth** users (and possibly manufacturers), bikers, and trailer trash. It’s been cleaned up quite a bit and has a decent-looking store. Last fall, I saw a sign saying that Edgar Winter was playing there, which mystified me for several miles.

But the store was firmly closed at 9:30 at night, and there was no-one to be seen. So my brother had to stand there until AAA appeared, shivering in the t-shirt that had been entirely appropriate for day time furniture wrestling, but was now wholly inadequate protection against the cold winds. My heart ached for the poor guy, marooned in the middle of nowhere, freezing his butt off after the day we’d had. I was so glad when my sister called to say he was home, safe and sound.

*The other farewell tradition is waving and blowing kisses until the departing car is out of sight. Our parents did it, too.

**I find the popularity of meth in rural communities a mystery. Why get all speeded up when there’s nothing to do and nowhere to go?