You know those places you occasionally visit to get a particular item, but you don’t like to go there, except forge on anyway (like Walmart only worse)? Well, this was where I was headed.
 
I had just hung up the phone with my Aunt who told me that my Cousin’s husband was bitten on his hand by a dog they took in, and he had to have stitches, and a tetanus shot and they are leaving for Europe tomorrow. I remarked. “It seems many people are having bizarre incidents happen, such as my ‘unmarked, wet floor’ accident. What is going on in the world?”

So driving on Alpha near Montfort, I think I bump over one of those little thingys in the road, they use to guide drivers into the correct lane, then I turn into the parking lot and park. My ‘check tires light’ comes on. And, I think, ‘Okay, I will take it by Discount Tires when I get back to ‘my part of town’.’

But, I get out of my car to find that both my tires on the drivers side are flat as pancakes. “Are you freaking kidding me!? What in the world could have happened? I just lightly bumped over one of those thingys and I was going slow. I have never had this happen before. What a horror show!

I am using my cane and my elbow is not 100 percent. I am in a ‘not so great part’ of town (that funky area nearer Preston before the Galleria) and I have two flat tires and this is my first venture out since my accident… Really! Not really?! #$%E#@!$%$!!!

I call Jaguar roadside assistance and explain. “I need a tow to Park Place Jaguar in Plano and please hurry. I am in a bad part of town and I am recuperating from an accident and I want outta here.”

“Can you give me an address?”
 
“A strip center on Alpha and Montfort… that’s all I know.” (There are no numbers that I can see and I am not going out walking around.)

They trace my location using my phone.

“Okay ma’am, we have you located. A tow should be there in about an hour.”

“An hour, couldn’t it be sooner?” As, I ponder and look around, ‘I might be murdered by then’.

“I understand ma’am. WIll you be with your car?”

“Of course.”

 I get out of the car and go into the shop to nab the item that this outing was all about.(I know, I coulda gone in and asked their address, but shrug… I wasn’t thinking, I guess)  I come out, get into my car, turn on the AC and wait, while I feel like I am being circled by vultures… if you know what I mean? I am getting lots of stares. I am in the land of rap, Obama-land, and I stick out like a sore thumb and I am using a friggin cane.

Men stop to offer help. I explain a tow is on the way. I call my Aunt. She can’t believe my bad luck. I get out of the car. It is hot, muggy, sprinkling on and off. The sun comes out, it gets hotter and more grungy… only like a nasty, thick air Texas day, not far from the traffic congestion of LBJ  can be sometimes. There is a stank in the air. I have my hair braided at my neck to keep it out of the air and I only mention this because it takes ‘two arms’, (yep, a left arm) to braid behind your head and I did it! I am getting more flexibility and mobility in my left elbow. So rock in roll, hoochie coo!

The shopping center guard comes over to suggest that I wait in a hamburger joint near by because it will be cooler. But I elect to stay close to, or in my car. Several more men stop to offer assistance and actually they are very nice. They look scary, but are ‘acting’ nice to the ‘white girl using a cane’.
In about thirty minutes, I spy a tow truck across the parking lot on the edge of the strip center. I stand and wave to flag it down. But I am small and he can’t see me. Then one of the help-offering men runs across to the truck and points in my direction. The tow truck driver sees me and here he comes. YAY!!! 

I am so happy to see him. I explain my physical situation as he looks around and takes in the flavor of where I am and I can tell, he wants to ask, What are ‘you’ doing ‘here’?’ But he says, “Don’t worry ma’am, I will get you outta of here in no time.”

Okay so, I climb into a tow truck cab with a healing fractured hip and a healing elbow. Well, he does help a bit by holding me at my waist… but still… I so rock the healing curve!

He loads my car onto the bed of the truck, then we head north on the tollway. I can’t say enough good things about how the towing-man treated me… on a scale of 1-10… he was 100! I have always had good experiences with Jordan Towing, but this guy… WOW! He got to me in thirty minutes because of my situation and he treated my car and me like we were precious cargo.
 
Outside the Jaguar dealership, this sweet towing-man lifts me out of the truck with one arm. It’s one thing to climb up, quite another to climb down.

Then my Jaguar serviceman appears and walks me into the waiting room. What began so bizarrely was ending just fine. Now, I was safe in the Jaguar waiting room.
 
I got a loaner and was soon on my way to my house. Whew! And my car will be ready tomorrow. So after rehab, I will pick it up. Ta da!

Do ‘bad things’ really happen in threes? 1. A week before my ‘unmarked, wet floor’ accident, I got a ‘speeding’ ticket. It was on one of those streets that changes speeds from 35 to 45 miles per hour and you can’t recall which is where. Other people were speeding fast past me. I told the cop this, and he replied, “Well, my laser was on ‘you’. But don’t worry, you can get out of it.” So, it was a shake down for revenue. I pay a fee then take a driving class and it is off my record. So great, I have that to look forward to. 2. The ‘unmarked, wet floor accident’. 3. Then this two tire flat as a pancake blowout on my first driving venture to push myself into my regular existence.

So, is this it? Or is there more?

Should I test the concept of bad things come in threes and drive my ‘rehabing self’ to Padre Island then take a bus across the border to Matamoros, I wonder what the Mexican cops might find strapped under my seat.  HA! HA!

Now as I write this, I am safe in my bed, after washing and drying my hair. I can even do that now on my own. I so rock! So now, I am sitting pretty and smelling like a rose, as my Dad used to say.

This morning, I read the innocent woman who was incarcerated in that Mexican rat hole is now home with her family. So YAY!I I bet she is happy to be freshly showered, in her bed and in her home with her seven children surrounding her.

Texas people are the best! Even in a scary part of town, I was taken care of with that ‘great big Texas, we help each other out attitude’. “Can I help you, ma’am?”
 
If we could’ve sent some Texas Rangers into get that innocent woman, I bet she would’ve been home sooner.

God, thank you for your ‘Angels of protection’ showing up in unusual places…

All’s well that ends well…

Just another day of adventure.. huh?