Tow truck man climbs out and hitches our car to his truck and motions us to get into the cab of his 2-seater truck. I look at mom and grin.
"I'm sitting on
your lap."
"Nice try," she said. "Get your butt in there first."
So I climb in and Mom is starting to climb in on me when Tow Truck guy jerks his thumb toward the rear of the cab and says, "There's space back there."
And so there was. A tiny little backseat sitting area we hadn't noticed. Mom is trying to slip in behind the seat without much success until the guy tells us how to pull the seat forward and even then it's a tight fit and so I get out and slip in back and she climbs in front and the guy is saying something the whole time but we're ignoring him as we try to get settled. As we final get seated I turn to him. "What?"
"I said there's a door there you can use."
Duh-oy! Nothing like fitting the stereotype of the ignorant woman driver.
He tows us a mile up the road to an Advance Auto Parts where a guy comes out and tests our battery. He looks at the machine, shows it to tow truck guy, and both their eyebrows go up. They look at us in amazement. Auto Parts guy says, "I've never seen a battery this low in my life."
How comforting.
"Can you replace it?" I ask.
He tilts his hat back and scratches his head. "I've been getting out of the battery business. Just not a lot of money in it. I've only got 2-3 expired ones on the shelf."
"Oh," I say. "Well, alright, I guess we can just get towed to--"
Mom interrupts. "Dena, I think he's kidding."
Both Auto Parts Man and Tow Truck guy burst out laughing. I decide I loathe all auto repair reps.
"Don't worry, I'll fix you up," says Auto Parts man. I hear him chuckling as he walks back toward the store. "I'm getting out of the battery business. Hee, hee. Good one."
We get our new battery and flee for home, both of us joking that with Mom's string of luck lately, she best not get on her plane tomorrow. Dead batteries, traffic jams, and emergency landing warnings just don't make one feel safe.
And indeed, when we arrived at the airport the next day to drop Mom off (2 hours early), the first words out of the desk clerk's mouth were "That flight has been delayed."
Bad luck? Not at all! Turns out an earlier flight had been delayed so she got on that one and actually left an hour earlier than she would have on her regular flight.
And not a dead plane battery in sight.
