IN WHICH I Refuse to Foreshadow the Shocking Events That Occur Between Ithaca and Watertown, AND - in the Meantime - We Get Home.

This is the last installment of the series, which was most recently delayed by my mission trip to New York City - more than worth it, by the way.  I covet your comments now that it's all through, unless of course those comments are, "You insufferable dolt, why on earth did you take a whole month to send out thirteen long emails about three days' worth of activities?," because I will delete those comments, after I print a copy to help soak up the water that mysteriously plagues my carpet as of late.  So in a way, I suppose you'd be doing me a favor.
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The car was still not running well, and it was definitely using gas more rapidly, because it had dropped below a quarter-tank as we drove around Syracuse.  We stopped for gas somewhere just north of Syracuse, but when I went to get back on 81, I missed the entrance, because it was pretty much a 90-degree turn with a STOP SIGN!  With the way the car was accelerating, this was a death trap - but we made it back on eventually.

We were still on pace to get back in time for the second half of the music meeting, as we drove north from Syracuse.  And as my uncle Don had said, once you get past Syracuse, it's pretty much downhill or flat, so the car seemed to be relaxing too.  Until, as they say in France...

BLAM!!

Whooma whooma whooma whooma whooma!!

Ka-thud thud thud.

The car was shaking and shuddering (fairly normal for this trip), but also pulling strongly to one side and making a really loud thumping noise (at least a little abnormal for this trip).  My grandmother's eyes were very big.  Enough had happened for one day, hadn't it?  "What's going on?," she asked.  "I think we have a flat tire," I answered.  We had just passed an "Exit: 1 Mile" sign, so I put the hazard lights on and tried to coast for a while, but after about a hundred feet, I knew I had to pull off.  This was my first blowout ever.  Oh boy.

We didn't have a flashlight and I have very little experience changing tires, so that was out of the question.  And I certainly wasn't going to leave my grandmother in the car while I went somewhere to call for help.  The only thing to do was for both of us to start down the highway, on a journey toward the town of Mexico, in the dark, on the side of a busy highway.

We hadn't gotten but a few hundred feet when a car pulled off ahead of us and started backing up to us.  We got up to it and saw it was a large white Cadillac, with an older couple in the front seat and their dog caged in the back.  "We saw you walking, and we wondered if we could give you a ride somewhere," the lady said.  And so they very kindly took us to the seedy, seedy, seedy truck stop/gas station off the Mexico exit.

My father works every day in Syracuse, and I figured that he might still be on 81, or at the office - but I couldn't remember his cell phone number!  I called home.  I got voice mail.  I called his office.  I got voice mail.  I called church.  I got an answering machine.  I ran out of change, and had to go up to the register to get more.  I called my aunt's house.  I got my cousin, who didn't tell me much.  Back to the register.  I hated this pay phone.  I called church again.  I left a message this time.  I called home on our second line.  I got Thomas.  "What's Dad's cell phone number?"  "Why do you need that?  He's right down the hall."  I started talking to Dad, who was - let me say - less than enthusiastic about driving 45 minutes to come a change a tire.  "Why don't you do it?"  I tried to explain, but the pay phone kept cutting me off, and finally he (grudgingly) said he was leaving.

Meanwhile, the three employees of the gas station had been watching us with indifference.  They were not eager to help when I needed change immediately, and this attitude carried over to their interactions with all customers.  The girl seemed to be quite popular with the truckers, as she was mildly attractive, which - naturally - made her a goddess to the lonely men who spend their lives on the road.  The two guys didn't pay attention to the customers, choosing instead to light up (probably illegally) and blare their radio.  The inattention reached its zenith when one guy - after watching me spend thirty minutes and six dollars trying to reach someone to help fix the tire - closed my Sprite purchase with "Have a good one."

Grandma and I went back and forth between the parking lot and the store, but it was cold enough to keep us inside most of the time.  I did win a free Sprite with my cap, which I immediately cashed in so I'd have something to give Dad when he arrived.  Grandma was quite worried that he'd be very angry about having to come down.  Meanwhile, the music meeting had long since started, and I knew I had no hope of making it there.  The girl cleaned out the bathrooms while the guys behind the counter took breaks from their smoking to scowl at me when I examined the truck paraphernalia.

My dad finally arrived, after trying the other three gas stations at the exit first, and, to our great pleasure, the long ride had moderated his temper considerably.  We got in the car, I gave him the Sprite, and we drove back.  He parked his car behind Grandma's, and went to work on the tire, which was completely shredded.  Any belief he still had that I should have tried to change the tire disappeared when it took almost all the strength he had to pry off the tight lugnuts.  Thus, I would have had no chance whatsoever.

Once the spare was on, he decided to drive Grandma's car home, to see what was wrong.  I followed them in his car, which for the first time, I really enjoyed driving.  It was like heaven in comparison to the way hers had been driving.  We finally got home after 9, and not a moment too soon.

A few things to wrap up, since I usually end up leaving unanswered questions:

Someone got the message I left on the church machine, and so they knew I wasn't going to make it to the meeting before my mom did.  This was good, because that way they weren't sitting around waiting.  My absence did lead to my set being pushed back to the next meeting, though, but I did end up doing it just as I planned before, without any problem with the songs.

My grandma's car: it turned out my uncle had fixed some wires before our trip, but they came loose, and this somehow affected the engine.  The smell, I think, was the plastic melting from the heat.  I'm not exactly sure what the problem was, but I do know it got fixed shortly after we got back, and now the car again runs fine.

I think that's about it.  I will talk to you all again soon.

NHS Speech

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