Stranded

I am normally not a complainer.??I’m usually pretty good at rolling with the punches.??However, once in a while things really get to me.??September 6, 2021 was one of those times.

????????????It was the evening Rosh Hashanah began so we were returning home from a lovely, but small, holiday dinner—just four of us, compliments of the Delta Variant, but nonetheless festive.??With china and silver set out on a lace tablecloth, wine goblets full and all you could eat gefilte fish, matzah ball soup, brisket, potato pancakes and kasha with bowties, one couldn’t help but smile.

????????????Filled to the brim and overflowing with holiday cheer, we set out from suburban Philadelphia to our bayside paradise in Brigantine, New Jersey.??So what’s to complain about???Nothing yet.??All went well as we barreled down the Schuylkill Expressway towards Center City.??Then it happened.??We felt a giant jolt and then we swerved out of control while my husband, Bill, valiantly tried to reach the shoulder as he brought our car to a stop.??Pothole = flat tire!

????????????Now let me explain about the car.??It’s a Porsche.??However, before you conclude that a retired Judge/reinvented mediator has suddenly become wealthy, I should confess that she is a 2000 Porsche, two seater, golden yellow convertible, in the shop more than she’s out but we love her to death.??Her name is “Portia the Porsche,” right out of the?Merchant of Venice,?and fitting for a judicial family.

????????????Portia came into our lives when Bill had a belated mid-life crisis and became fixated on buying a motorcycle.??“If you buy one,” I said, “you better upgrade your life insurance.??And, don’t expect me to ride on the back!??From my experience handling motorcycle accident cases, the lucky ones are the ones that die instantly.”

????????????That gave Bill pause.??However, a few weeks later he came back with an alternative.??“What if I got a Porsche?” he countered.

????????????“If you can buy a Porsche for the price of a motorcycle, go for it,” I quipped.

????????????And that was that, or so I thought.??Little did I know that Bill had already found Portia, sitting neglected on a used car lot and fell instantly in love with her.??In the end, he negotiated a deal not too much higher than a motorcycle.??If I had to share Bill with another woman, Portia was my first choice as I soon fell in love with her too.

????????????So there we were at 9:00 p.m., barely on the shoulder of a major highway known for its high profile accidents with a tire as flat as a pancake.??Moreover, we were stuck just before the Spring Garden Street Exit, not the safest neighborhood in Philly.

????????????What do we do now???Call AAAs, of course.??Bill whipped out his Premier, personalized just for us card, and dialed in.

????????????“Don’t worry,” he coaxed me, “they will be out soon.??They’re very reliable.”

????????????That didn’t make me feel any better as I watched cars whizzing by, seemingly only inches from our little yellow Portia.??Time seemed to crawl by with us on hold.??At last, someone other than a robot answered.

????????????“Thank goodness,” Bill began.??“We have a flat tire and are stuck on the Schuylkill Expressway near the Spring Garden Street Exit.??We are very concerned about getting hit.??We need someone to come out and change a tire.”

??????“Well, that may be a problem,” the Customer Service Representative from our Premier, personalized just for us AAAs card, said.???“We are very busy tonight.??It could take between 45 minutes and an hour at best.”

????????????So much for being reliable.??Bill hung up disgruntled while I silently steamed.

????????????“I think they’ll be here sooner,” he said.??“They always tell you longer so you will be pleased when they show up early.”

????????????“I hope we’re not lying dead in the road by then,” I replied.??“If we’re not hit by a car, we’ll be robbed at gunpoint.”

????????????“Stop being pessimistic, you’re just going to jinx us,” he growled.

??????Then he opened his IPhone to Facebook and ignored me entirely.

????????????After an hour of silence inside and escalating traffic noises outside, I strongly suggested, as early was no longer an option, that he call our Customer Services Representative at AAAs back and remind her that we were senior citizens who were terrified of being stranded by the side of a highway in the dark of??night.??With some of his stuffing gone, Bill complied.

????????????“We’re still waiting for the repair truck,” he began, trying to sound frail and pathetic, “and we’re older people and afraid of being robbed or worse.”

????????????“Well, if you’re that afraid, you better call 911,” came the retort from our AAAs Customer Service Representative.??“Because it turns out, no one will be there for at least another hour, maybe more.”??And, with that, she hung up.

????????????This was too much for me.??I went ballistic.

????????????“Call 911,” I shouted, “really???We have one of the highest murder rates in the country, who’s going to care about two little old people stuck on the Schuylkill Expressway?”

????????????“First, we are not little old people,” Bill spat out.??“We still bike twenty-five miles, exercise with Silver Sneakers four or five times a week and we traveled around the world right before Covid.??Plus, you still work full-time as a mediator.??I just said that to get her to send someone out sooner.”

????????????“And, how did that work out for you,” was all I managed to say before he actually dialed 911.

????????????Now, I did not expect the Philadelphia Police to send out a squad car to fix our tire.??However, I did hope they might bring us some flares to alert distracted drivers that there was a disabled vehicle on the road.

????????????No such luck.??The 911 operator told us what we should have realized in the first place:???the Schuylkill Expressway is a state highway, not their jurisdiction; but she was gracious enough to transfer us directly to the State Police, who informed us we needed to call AAAs ASAP.??They were too busy to even drop off a few measly flares.?

??????Bill received the news stoically.??But, I started to sob uncontrollably.??Then, all of a sudden, there were lights coming towards us on the shoulder.”

????????????“The AAAs at last,” Bill exclaimed.??“Better late than never.”

????????????Once again, no such luck.??What pulled up behind us was a battered old tow truck.??What emerged from the truck was not Superman, more like a punk rocker on steroids, a ponytail, tattoos from shoulder to wrist, as far as I could tell in the dark.??Here we go, I thought, robbed or worse for sure.??

????????????“Hi, are you guys o.k.?” he began pleasantly as he approached Portia.

????????????I almost said that we were fine and he should go away but Bill, who was at the end of his rope as we had already passed hour two (by ten minutes), blurted out:

????????????“We have a flat tire and we have been stuck her for two hours.??We really need help.”

??“Don’t you have AAAs?” he asked.??“They’re very reliable.”

??????????????????At this, Bill just crumpled.??“We called two hours ago, we called one hour ago, but they still haven’t come.”

??????????“Of course, I’ll help,” he said cheerfully.??“Show me which tire is flat.”

??????With that, he and Bill walked around the car, did a little negotiating and settled on $50.00 cash which Bill and I were able to cobble together. In fifteen minutes we were, at long last, back on the road. Our Good Samaritan, actually followed us all the way to the?Ben Franklin Bridge to make sure there was enough air in our spare tire to get home.

??????We had just entered the Atlantic City Expressway, three hours after our first call to AAAs, when their tow truck operator called to say he would arrive in ten or fifteen minutes.??We told him not to bother.

????????????The next day Bill called AAAs, to lodge a complaint and to request a $50.00 reimbursement for the cash we put out.??The Customer Service Representative took his information and politely told him we were not entitled to reimbursement because we neglected to ask our Good Samaritan for a receipt.??No one apologized.

????????????The good news is there are still Good Samaritans in this world who take the time to help others in trouble and for that I am profoundly grateful.??The bad news is there are a lot of service companies in that same world who are happy to take your??money but have conveniently forgotten what you gave it to them for in the first place.