Charged Up

The batteries on my car and cell phone ran down at the same time yesterday. Made for some tense moments calling for roadside rescue from Triple A. Though it all turned out perfectly in the end, as it usually does, the way I passed the time between crisis onset and rescue was very different for me.

The very patient and honey voiced customer service lady on the phone told me I had anywhere from five to thirty minutes before I could expect the welcome thrum of the service truck, so I ducked into Safeway to pick up a cup of tea, determined to make myself as comfy as possible. With only one person in line ahead of me, I thought it would be a snap. What I didn't know then was that the counter was staffed by a very new and VERY slow moving heavy-set young woman whose attention span seemed taxed beyond her fair limits, bless her. When I say bless her, you know that I am being polite and avoiding the opposite which would begin with the sixth letter of the alphabet. When she eventually turned her body and eyes in the direction of the customers, her voice was sweetly soft and utterly inaudible. Had I been on the consulting team that hired her, I would have perhaps noted "not job ready" on her file, however... I had to repeat my order a couple of times as she wasn't familiar with the menu of drinks yet and I suppose the weird pronunciation of rooibus tea was enough to throw anyone who's service training might have been less than customers would prefer. She also might have been absent for the portion where the names of the drinks are pronounced.

However, we eventually sorted it out, then she had to call over her co-worker, a pimply youth who was a perfect Jack Spratt fit for her, to enter the order correctly and set up the cash register function. Between the two, eventually I managed to pay and moved over to the drinks receiving end of the counter. Mr. Spratt was dancing attendance elsewhere, however, a large empty milk jug in one hand and his other entering the next customer's order while Ms. Slo-Mo looked on blankly. Meanwhile, at eye level was a skirt and pair of legs on a ladder in front of a cabinet behind the counter. From the lack of uniform and tennis shoes, I guessed this person to be a manager of sorts, but she was very busy labeling items in the cabinet and painstakingly peeling off sticky tags. I let out a sigh and appealed to the good lord for patience.

Meanwhile, the line at the counter was now six people deep and included a mother whose three boys were clustered around her shopping cart, parked nearby, bumping one another, as boys do, and calling each other names. The youngest was trapped in the infant seat and kept calling for his mother who kept calling back words of reprimand and comfort (ok, she was yelling a bit)and reminders that she was "right here". The boys and I did well, considering our levels of anxiety - my neck was straining past the line through the window to the parking lot looking for the rescue truck, remember, and with no truck and no tea in sight and a shopping cart of three active boys about to topple over, the level of comfort I had hoped for had long evaporated.

I just gave up and focused instead on the fact that AFTER ALL I had the money and time to buy a cup of tea, that I wasn't stranded on the freeway at 2am, and that the three boys had a mother who felt confident enough to let them handle themselves around a shopping cart for an indefinite wait, something I could never have done. Modern motherhood is a source of amazement to me.

Of course when it finally came, the tea was too hot and I burned my tongue. This happens so often that I call it the Starbux Scald. I returned to my stalled car, and took up a lookout pose watching for the rescue truck. At that hour, however, the sun was glaring down at horizon level in the very direction I had to face, which meant heavy squinting - yes, I agree, wearing a hat would have helped. It's a bit much being scalded, blinded and stranded all at once. I was only glad that I didn't have to pee, which I usually do when anxious, like a fretful puppy.

Turning my back to the sun for a few moments, to stave off a migraine from squinting, I decided to investigate a box of ceramics my daughter had left in the back of my car. She's created a beautiful line of plates which I am selling to friends and this was her latest batch. As I was rustling through the newspaper packing and admiring my daughter's handiwork, along comes a friend I haven't seen in ages, and she tells me how much she loves her new job and how well her life is going. She asks after my health and I find that talking about the recent low levels of energy and mood are not giving me pleasure at all, so I skip over it as quickly as I can and next thing you know the rescue truck arrives.

It's the full length open bed type with a car parked on it's back and the owner riding shotgun in the rescue truck's cab. I fret for a moment wondering how the heck the busy parking lot, the truck and my jump start will work out, as if somehow I am the one who has to know all this. In fact, I didn't have to handle ANY of it.

Past experience with grimy fingered grunting types, with beer bellies and plumber's crack attractions had me understandably worried. But, as with mothering, times have changed in the rescue business. A svelt, clean and polite youth hoisted himself down from his cab toting a slim case like a laptop computer which turned out to be a portable battery pack. He relieved me of my ignition key, smooth as a pickpocket, I hardly felt a thing. Took my membership card just as deftly and run a pencil over a piece of paper he'd placed over the card to get the imprint on the form, using his thigh as a desk. Cool, I thought. Couldn't have been easier. He advised me to run the engine for the next 3o minutes and to go home and leave the car idling in front of the house instead of driving around in the commute traffic. An angel, I thought. Somebody's son caring for somebody else's mom. Wanted to send him home with a casserole. Used to be I'd give these guys a tip for some beer. Perish the memory.

So at the end of the day, here's how it all shakes out. If we are in fact all sons or daughters, when we help one another it's no different than helping one of our own, it's just somebody else's mom or child. Why is it so difficult then for us to be patient loving and kind at times? Good thing I have an appointment to see my therapist today, perhaps we'll explore some of my resistance issues, or perhaps I'll just paint some more postcards and send them to friends instead. Beats housework.