The day of my pre-op appointment started out ordinary enough. The plan was for me to drop James off for a procedure, go to my appointment and swing by to pick him up, and go home. Easy enough, right?
Plans changed. James came home sick, so he had to cancel his procedure, and he spent the rest of the day in bed with a fever. I left home frazzled and running late. I spent too much time trying to decide which car to take. I don’t like driving his truck, but my van doesn’t have AC right now. I finally decided to take my van, but in my hurry to leave, I forgot my phone.
Yikes, this was a problem, since I needed info stored on it to complete some errands. As soon as I made it to my appointment, I sought out a land line. For those of you of the younger generation, this is a phone attached to a wall. In my day they were readily available, but in this time of cell phones, they are a rare sighting. Thankfully, the waiting room had one, and after entering several weird codes, I finally succeeded in placing a call to James. The whole thing was rather awkward as the phone was stuck in a corner, right next to a lady. She was gracious, once she realized what I was doing, she moved to another chair. It took two calls to gather the needed info!
My actual appointment went well, and I was deemed ready for surgery. Actually, they told me how healthy I am. The nurse’s exact comment was, “I feel like I’ve missed something, this was too easy.” I’ve grown used to such remarks, I usually respond with, “Yes, except for the cancer.” It is still a mystery as to why I had cancer. I have to let go of the want to know why.
After driving around without an AC in the afternoon heat, I decided it was worth it to swing by home to exchange cars and get my phone. As soon as I drove off, I realized his truck was low on gas. I have never filled his truck up, so this would be a new experience for me, because it took diesel. I was watching the needle, it seemed to be holding fine, so I thought I could stretch it a bit more. I wanted to go to my preferred gas station, which was just a bit further. It seemed logical at the time.
Until, it wasn’t.
I found myself stranded on the side of the road, I was barely able to pull into a construction lane.There I sat with sweat pouring down my face, in the heat with no shade or AC, with a husband at home in bed with a fever.
What to do? I called an old friend who lived just around the corner. Without hesitation, even though he did not have a diesel gas can, he said he would figure it out and come. Did you know you had to have a special can for diesel? Oh, and it’s not a good thing for a diesel truck to run out of gas.
I climbed out of the hot truck to seek out the teeny bit of shade I spied near by. I sat down to wait. Before I knew it, I was receiving a call from another friend, I answered, thinking she was calling to rib me. She wasn’t, she was the one who had the diesel cans and was coming to rescue me! Of course, I should have thought to call her!
She asked me a bunch of questions, but after I uttered enough confused “whats”, she stopped asking. My first friend showed up to wait with me, we had a good conversation on the side of the road while we waited. Before long, my girlfriend showed up exclaiming, “You know, if you wanted to see me, we could have met for lunch!” I agreed, that would have been much better!
They put enough in to get me running up, and I learned that if a diesel runs out of gas, you have to prime the engine first, and sometimes that doesn’t work. Thankfully, in our case it did, thank you, Jesus! They decided to escort me to the nearest gas station. There I was with my own private entourage, but before we could even pull out of the construction lane, the truck in front of me lost part of his load, which was a huge filing cabinet. This thing had five drawers, and was super HEAVY. Somehow we managed to get it back onto the truck.
We laughed, never a dull moment!
When we pulled into the gas station, my girlfriend pointed out the diesel pumps for me. Stinker! I knew they were the green handled ones! Duh! James had just informed me of this! Ha! Much later than I anticipated, I arrived home. I was stinkier and sweatier than I would have been had I just stayed with my non-ac van, but at least I enjoyed the AC on the ride home.
I am so grateful for friends who were gracious and kind to me. They did not scold me, or mock me one bit, even though I deserved it. Instead, they sincerely thanked me for calling them. Isn’t that sweet? I drag them out in the afternoon heat to work on my car, because I was irresponsible and did not get gas when I should have, and they thank me. That is mercy.
Proverbs 27:10
Do not forsake your friend, and the friend of your father, and do not go to your brother’s house when disaster strikes you –
better a neighbor nearby than a brother far away.
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