I don’t travel a lot–too many responsibilities here at the farm, and I just really enjoy being here, so there’s not much need “to get away”.
This past weekend was the Southeast Wise Woman’s Herbal Conference in Black Mountain, North Carolina and I had registered to attend, and camp, for the weekend. The same weekend the hurricane danced with the eastern seaboard of the country. It rained and rained and the conference classes were good, and it rained some more. Rosemary Gladstar did several presentations, and she was a definitely a highlight of the conference.
The conference was scheduled to end on Sunday afternoon but they called it quits about 10:30 am due to gusty winds, lots of rain, and ankle deep mud everywhere. No one complained, we just left. This is where the story gets interesting…….. I have no photos but I’m sure you’ll understand once you get into the story.
Driving out of the camp back to the main road, I missed the very last turn, but realized it immediately. There was one of those gravel pull-offs just up the road so I drove on up there, turned my car around, checked for traffic, and pulled back up onto the roadway. Just as I got to the road my front tire went into a hole and came out with a “bam”–well no, it was more like “BAM” and my first thought was “oh crap, that sounded expensive. I pulled on out onto the road and my car wasn’t driving so well, so I pulled off the road into a kudzu patch and got out (in the rain) and my left front tire was flat. Bummer!
All my camping gear was in the back of the car and the lid to access the spare tire is at the bottom of all my stuff. So, I had to unload everything out of the car, get the tire out, round up the jack and handle and I did get the car jacked up but couldn’t find the socket that goes to the custom wheels that whoever owned my car before had put on it–grrrrrrrr! I searched and searched and started blaming the guys that rotated my tires last time. Boy, was I gonna give them a piece of my mind on Monday morning.
So, I started walking down the street, past empty buildings and closed tire stores to a gas station where the attendant told me the nearest car parts was 3 miles either direction. I was almost ready to call a cab when a sheriff’s deputy car pulled into the parking lot. I heard a choir singing Hallelujah!!
I walked up to the car and told them my story and they seemed really reluctant to help, but they emptied all the crap out of their back seat and gave me a ride back to my car. He had to go past my car and turn around, in the same place I turned around, and I said “hey, watch out for that hole”. That’s when we saw just how big the hole was and there were scars on the pavement all around it so I wasn’t the first one to fall in.
Well, the deputy called a friend of his who has a tow truck roll-back vehicle and he didn’t have a wrench to fit so the deputies put me back in the car and we went to the auto parts store that was three miles down the road. We borrowed a wrench from them, got back to the car, and it wouldn’t even begin to fit. At this point I was ready to cry but I didn’t really see how that would help, so I just focused on being mad at those guys who still had my special socket. I dug through the glove box, console, under the seats, door pockets, and went back around to the back of the car and OMG, the socket was laying in the tray I had taken out of the car to get to the spare tire.
With the socket in hand I walked up to the more personable deputy and held my hands up and said “don’t shoot me, I found the socket”. He changed the flat, I put all my crap back in the car, and I told him that I felt like giving him a hug but that probably wasn’t appropriate so we just bumped knuckles and I headed back to the auto parts store to return the wrench.
My little Subaru was driving pretty weird but I thought it was because of the donut tire. When I got out of the car in the auto parts parking lot I saw that my left rear tire was flat too! What? I couldn’t freaking believe this! I started digging really deep in this situation. I was able to bring up the memory that my son had said he was going to get Verizon Roadside Assistance put on the phone plan because he had car trouble before and thought it would be a good thing to have. i had no idea whether he had gone through with it or not, so I called Verizon and sure enough, I was on the plan! Way to go, son! She called a rollback and we hauled the car to a Walmart in Asheville.
As the car was rolling off the rollback, the car security system was activated. The horn has been disabled from that annoying feature, BUT the ignition is disabled. I never use the security system and actually took the little clicker-thingees off my keychains a while back. I didn’t even know if I had one in the car, so I started digging around in every place a clicker could be and lo-and-behold I found one! I held it up to the sky and said “thank you, but you need to get more in front of whatever else is causing all this crap” and then I just sort of chuckled to myself. I started clicking and it wouldn’t work, so I had to go in the store to buy a new battery. After I got the battery replaced and was able to disarm the security system. With the security system disarmed I put the key in the switch to start the car. It just clicked–dead battery.
I started laughing hysterically because at this point, this really seemed like it was happening to someone else and I was just watching. I guess that’s what I was hoping. Well, at least I wasn’t walking in the rain anymore.
The mechanics brought out their “jumper box” and jumped off the car, then took the car into the garage. I sat in the waiting room, well, waiting. Someone came in and told me both tires were busted so I had to pick out 2 new tires to replace the 2 almost new tires I trashed. The battery was worn out as well, so I selected the battery. $300 later I was on my way home, around 3:30 pm.
I was trying my best to shake it all off and get in a positive mood again AND I was hungry so I stopped at the first rest area I came to to get a snack from the cooler. I grabbed some food and got back in the car and thought the hood looked a little strange so I went to check it and it wasn’t latched! Good grief, this is getting scary. So now, I’m creeping down the Interstate waiting for a rock to hit the car or something, but I finally made it home.
It’s not over! The next morning I was answering e-mails and so forth and the phone rang. I answered and it was the guy from Walmart. He said I left my spare key and extra clicker battery there.
I gave him my address and asked him to stick it in an envelope and mail it to me.
Now, two days later, can I safely say “THE END”?
Wild Things Farm 