Guardian Angel? Get in line.

Once in a while you think you're having a bad day and then you watch someone else's day dissolve into chaos and realize how grateful you are that it's just not your turn, but when it is, you hope your angels are watching and come to the rescue. Two days ago I witnessed both the dissolving and the angels appearing.

I happened to be trapped in my car, accidentally I must add, by the premature hosing down of my car at the local rehab/halfway house weekend $5 carwash deal. The guys who do the washing take turns, divvy up the take at the end of the day, look like they've been lifting weights in a prison yard for a while, or something similar. Mostly young, stripped down for the carwash, they smoke between cars, have a radio on full volume blasting rap and hiphop. Customers are usually repeat locals willing to help out the guys and get a great but inexpensive hand wash on their car. I go a couple of times a year at most and this was one of my days. Being trapped in the car I decided to enjoy just sitting there while the guys did their sudsy rub down on the car and I indulged a fantasy of myself being massaged and gently washed, while listening to my own public radio station. All of a sudden, for no reason I could think of, I was compelled to check my rearview mirror and watched as a car turning into the driveway of the carwash was rear ended by another car which had swerved hard but not quickly enough. The noise of the impact had all the guys on red alert, like a herd of zebra when a lion lopes onto the scene, their heads flicked up as one, and they slowly moved up to the cars, checking things out.

I turned off my radio, stepped out of the still wet and sudsy car and walked along with the guys to see if there was anything I could do to help. I recognized one of the drivers, a friend, who was trying to get information from the other driver, a young guy, wearing a shirt, tie and well pressed pants as if on his way to church or a job interview, who was pacing and holding his hands to his head in despair. His car, an expensive German import had its hood buckled into a sharp A and oil was flooding the ground underneath it. My friend's car had a hole gouged in the steel bumper and the rear wheel well had buckled onto the back tire and she was trying, now, to wrench it free so she could drive the car without stripping the tire. She was in a state, but didn't realize it. She didn't have her glasses, wasn't writing or reading numbers accurately, had written down the date of her insurance policy instead of the number of the policy, thought it had expired, was leaving a message for her husband to come and help, and all in a calm voice. But I knew she wasn't herself. "Oh, it's you, I can't believe it." She seemed relieved to see a friendly face.
I told her to take a breath, gave her a hug, rubbed her back a little and told her it was all going to be ok. "You're an angel, an angel" she kept saying. I didn't feel like one, but I was glad to be there.

Meanwhile the guys in their shorts and bare tops were talking to the young guy, walked him over to their rest area, lent him a cell phone so he could call his girlfriend, and told him everything would be ok. They were being angels to the guy, whether they knew it or not. Turns out the guy had just been released from jail that morning, was borrowing his girlfriend's car, and now this. Turns out he also was driving on a suspended license and her insurance was only month to month, so the story isn't over yet. But it'll turn out all right. Nobody was seriously injured, some serious lessons were to be learned, no doubt, but for those of us who were hand holding and back rubbing, the lesson was also clear. It was just our turn that day to be on one side of the mess, tomorrow it might be different.