My Lucky Day

Have I ever mentioned that I think I am a lucky person? If I haven’t, I need to say that tonight.

Today was one of those days. I was up at five a.m. to let the dogs upstairs out. I had to be back there by ten if I didn’t want to mop the floor. Duke is just too elderly to wait any longer than that. I let them all out and went to feed the cat and turn off her heating pad.

My son made her a wonderful little cat house with a foyer and heating pad that I turn to the second level at night and off in the morning since she is an outside cat. After she was taken care of I went to let the dogs back in and the two girls came right away. I thought it was all down hill after that. If anyone is going to give me trouble it is never Duke. At least not until today.

Today, my neighbor, I’ll call him Jethro (not his real name) was out there. Jethro still has his winter beard and he says he is afraid of dogs. He always tells whoever comes out that Eben bit him. She’s our Australian shepherd and very smart. She often finds a way out of the yard and Jethro always says she bit him. I asked him, “Did she get out of the yard?”

“No.” He replied, “but I’m afraid of dogs.” I assured him that I was afraid of dogs too and that maybe he should keep his hands on his side of the fence when the dogs are in the yard. I said it sweetly and he evidently took no offence because he nodded and smiled broadly. Still Duke would not come in as long as Jethro was out there, because Jethro also likes to feed our dogs at six every morning no matter how many times we tell him they are very well fed in the house. (If we can get them to come in.)

I won’t tug on Duke, he’s big and old and I am a little afraid of being bitten and Jethro wouldn’t go inside, so Duke stayed out by the fence, hoping for more treats. Eventually I just left him out and went down to my house. An hour later I came up and Jethro and gone in, so Duke finally came in. Jethro also left me a big bouquet of flowers on the mailbox, which suggests to me that he knows he’s very annoying.

Then tonight, after moving my bed back into the bedroom and lugging furniture all around my house all day, I went up and let the dogs out before treating myself to a fast food hamburger, or at least that was my intention. I drove my car about a half mile down the road when suddenly nothing worked. I couldn’t get it to go and I couldn’t shift gears. I finally just let it roll backwards down the hill into the paper mill road and called my son.

The kids are in Tennessee, but I needed our neighbor’s phone number. I was stranded. My son was in the middle of the Dixie Stampede and all I could hear were people shouting. He said he’d call right back.

In the meantime, a big semi was trying to turn onto the street where I was stranded. He had a delivery for the paper mill, but I was blocking his way. I explained what was going on with my car and he offered to finish backing it down into the employee parking lot in order to get it off their access road. Then he said he needed to make the delivery and he’d be right back.

About ten minutes later he walked up from the delivery dock and took a look at my car. He said he used to be a mechanic before he went to Iraq and thought he could help me. He kept looking and I told him about getting my axle replaced this past week and he finally decided it was the new axle.

He called a tow truck for me and arranged for the driver to take me home before he towed my Honda out to the repair place. Then he had to leave, but he said if I was still there when he returned, he’d take me home. About twenty minutes after he left, the tow truck arrived and agreed that it was probably my new axle, then he slid his truck up and did the slickest little pick up you could ever imagine.

On the way home, it turned out that he knew the guy who’d helped me out. He said he’d been a great mechanic, but injured his hands in Iraq and could no longer work on cars. He also knew the guy who had repaired my axle. It was his old partner who left him to go to a dealership and then left them to start his own place! Small world.

He drove me home, waited while I ran down and got my checkbook and told me to be sure and ask the repair place to reimburse the towing bill. Still he charged me thirty dollars less than the last guy wanted for towing.

This is a small town and I was on a road that normally gets no traffic on a Saturday night. I might have had to leave my car and walk home if not for these people.

I am so lucky. Well, sorta……