Friday in the Rain / Saturday in Yucksville!

A week or so ago, I was grousing about the weather, and how hot it was. That changed Friday evening as a front moved it. Just as I got home, it began to rain. I was so tired that I did the necessary cat feeding, then went to bed. Around 6:30 or so, I got a call from a friend who had run out of gas on the Interstate. Yikes! What a night to be stranded. I quickly tried to remember my name, got dressed, snatched a jacket from the closet, hopped into the car, and off into the rain I went. This was no gentle evening shower, much more like being in a car wash. There were puddles in the streets the size of a lagoon. The sky was filled with jagged streaks of lightning like cracks in a giant black egg. Halfway to the Interstate, the street was blocked by a train. I detoured back, crawled under a railroad trestle and zigzagged through a set of dim, narrow residential streets and found my way back to the original route.

As I neared my destination, I realized I was not sure from where he had called. So I began to scout the waterscape for telephone booths. My first turn was false, but I saw a nearby store that seemed right. And there he was, appearing amazingly dapper for someone who had walked a mile or more in the rain. The store appeared to be one that may have started life as a service station for a major gas company, but then had gone downhill. There were dirty, rusty burglar bars on the windows, and the gas pumps in front were squat, dented and timeworn.

We backtracked to some newer gas pumps to the east, scrounged two plastic jugs from customers, filled them with gas, and wound our way out to the Interstate. Although the car was not far off, we had to go five or six miles west to the next exit to be able to change lanes and comeback east. The car was sitting a few feet from the traffic looking very distressed and forlorned. Of course, we'd not thought to bring a funnel, so gas managed to flow everywhere but into the tank. All this within a foot or so of 70-mile-per-hour traffic. I kept thinking of the news story from a few days before of the car stranded on the Interstate that was hit by a truck killing the occupants.

I'd thought of the rain and the dark, but I had not thought of the incredible noise of being so close to traffic. It was impossible to tell if the car was running. As we started to drive off, another car pulled off in front of us. My first fear was a psychotic mugger. But was another friend who had also been called. So friend A and friend B drove off, and I tried to figure out how to get back into traffic without becoming road kill. Once back, I was immediately accosted by dimwits who wondered why I was not doing 70. It is seldom that I drive that portion of the highway, and almost never at night, so I felt confused. But I managed to make it to the first exit and then eventually back to my house.

As I came in the door, the cats gave me one of their "where have you been" looks. And under the circumstances, I could not blame them. As tired and exhausted as I was, I could not go to sleep. Sleep finally came, but when I woke up I felt lousy. Even lunch at Little Tokyo did little to enhance my mood. I debated whether to do the laundry, but I saw no choice. Later I began to run a temperature and felt even worse. I took some pills and a jolt of sleeptime cough stuff and went to bed.

Another day!

PAX!