On Wednesday mornings I travel to the city to attend a class called "Living your Best Year." This is a big deal for me. My mind doesn't function at its peak in the morning and I don't enjoy driving in commuter traffic. Nonetheless, yesterday I got up, got dressed, and started to drag myself out to the street where my car was parked. Halfway up the hill, I realized I'd left my book behind so I went back and fetched it. Then, as I entered the car, a button on my shirt got entangled in the seat belt latch. The clock was ticking as I attempted to free myself and ultimately succeeded. As I pulled out onto the street, I looked at the dashboard and saw a light pop on. The illuminated icon looked like a laurel wreath surrounding an exclamation mark.
Of course I had no idea what the light meant, so I pulled over, got out my owner's manual and looked it up. It took a while but I found out that this is the symbol for low tire pressure. It seems like there could have been a more obvious icon for that, but the people who design dashboards don't appear to be concerned about being user-friendly any more than those who write owners' manuals care about clarity.
What to do? I walked around the car and looked at the tires. None was flat, but they all looked low,
especially the front ones. I kicked them for good measure. I'm not sure what I expected to happen but it seemed like the right thing to do at the time. I decided it would be safe to drive to the closest gas station and put air in them.
At the gas station, I found the air machine and it cost a dollar. "Quarters only." There's something annoying about the concept of paying for air, but I went inside and got change. Back at the car, I sat inside, reading the manual trying to figure out how much pressure the tires needed. After extensive reading, all I found was that the pressure should be indicated on the tire. I crawled around, looking. [Did I mention I was wearing white pants? My mom always said white pants after Labor Day are a poor wardrobe choice and I see now that she was right.] The tire pressure was, indeed, embedded on the side of the tire. It was then that I realized how handy a tire gauge might have been.
By now, I was truly hoping a guy would come to my rescue. As soon the thought materialized, I told myself that this sounded pretty sexist. Although, in my experience, guys are generally more knowledgeable than gals on car-related issues, I decided to amend my wish anyway. I didn't really care the gender of my rescuer. A man, a women -- if a magical goat came along with an air pressure gauge, I'd take it.
No knight in shining armor arrived. No powder-puff mechanic materialized. No pixies, car fairies, no unicorns. It was going to be up to me. I crawled around some more, unscrewed the little nozzle caps, inserted the quarters into the air machine and blindly put air into each tire. Nothing exploded so I took that as a good sign. I turned the car on, saw that the light was still lit up and formed Plan B.
Plan B: Drive my car to a nearby auto repair shop where the guys are professional, knowledgeable and, best of all, nice. Go inside and throw myself on their mercy.
The young guy behind the desk got up, went out and put air in my tires. He said that on cool days the air pressure goes down a little and that there probably wasn't even anything wrong. Furthermore, you have to drive a little while for the dashboard light to go off. All great information that I could use on the spot. It was a wonderful experience and I was grateful.
When I asked him what I owed him, he said, "Nothing. Air is free."
I finally arrived at my class. My white pants were grimy and I was almost an hour late but I was floating on air. Turns out, I had learned a valuable lesson: We don't have to live our best lives alone. We can call in the A-Team to give us a hand whenever we want. And, when you figure out who the good guys are, air is free. I like that.
Savannah may be a city that oozes southern charm, but one thing in short supply is available bathrooms. Hospitality doesn't seem so hospitable when you have to go and all you see in every direction are signs that say, "No Public Restrooms."
St. Paddy's Day in Savannah is legendary and the population swells to three times its normal size. I arrived one week later and the city was clearly recovering from its collective hangover. I have zero idea where the beer swilling Irishmen or their Irish-wanna-be friends relieved themselves during their big fun (want me to guess?) but I found myself walking square after square in search of the golden fleece -- in this case, a toilet.
While I searched, I cursed that sneaky waiter at the outdoor cafe who kept surreptitiously filling my water glass until I had probably unwittingly consumed several gallons of liquid, far in excess of what my tiny bladder would normally accommodate. Come to think of it, he had an Irish lilt to his voice. My suspicion is that he had a personal St. Paddy's Day ax to grind.
Soon I found myself standing in line inside a gourmet market/petrol station waiting for the opportunity to humiliate myself by asking the guy cashiering for the restroom key. Just as my turn finally arrived --and not a moment too soon--a young girl breezed in and said, "Excuse me. Could I please have your restroom key?" And he gave it to her!
I peeled out of line and followed the girl with the restroom key into the store's underbelly. This market was one of those snobbish, upscale places where they sell chocolate candy bars for six bucks a piece. Even the help was able to size me up and with one arch of an eyebrow make me feel I didn't belong there. Well, the joke's on them because their store isn't all that attractive back there in the loo line and the restroom, even though you had to use a key to access it, wasn't any cleaner than the average gas station's.
Beggars can't be choosers though and I was truly grateful that they allowed me to use their facilities, albeit grudgingly. I bought a candy bar on the way out. It was surprisingly tasty.
Maybe you really do get what you pay for.
