Monday, you can SUCK IT!

Today I set off my Huntsville business trip. I didn't want to deal with a rental car, mostly because my budget is super tight and I'd have to pay for it out of pocket and then get reimbursed and I didn't want to deal with the paperwork. I just figured it would be easier to take my own car for this quick trip and collect mileage.

I could not have been more wrong.

I was cruising along, a little over an hour outside Austin. I almost forgot about my two hours of conference calls and I was irked that I'd left my earpiece for the phone at the office. I was finished early with hour one of calls, so I stopped in Giddings, TX to use the restroom and get a soda. About 10 minutes later I glanced down and saw that my temperature was in the red and the battery light was on. I was passing through a tiny town, so I made a u-turn back to what looked like the only building with any cars in front of it, a little antiques shop. Steam started to come out of the hood just as I stopped. I looked under the hood and the lid on the coolant was open and there wasn't much liquid inside. Yikes.

The antiques shop was closed, but the owner was inside and waved me in. I asked where I could find a service station and she told me that it closed at noon. For real? Fortunately there was a convenience store about 1/4 mile down the road that she said would sell coolant. So, I set off walking.

A few minutes later, the antiques store owner pulled up beside me and gave me a ride the rest of the way. She waited for me while I went inside and called my mechanic for advice on what to buy. He told me just to get bottled water and in the process, another local decided he was going back with the antiques owner and I to try and help me out. Once back at the car, local guy discovered my busted engine drive belt. I knew I wasn't going anywhere.

Of course I'm the dick who doesn't have AAA, so I called the mechanic again for more advice. He gave me the number to a towing company that would come get the car, supposedly at a discount. I called the towing company and didn't even ask the price. They didn't require a credit card number up front or anything and they told me to just leave the key under the mat. So that bomb is still yet to drop.

I canceled my 4pm meeting in Huntsville, called the nearest rental car company (in Brenham, 20 miles away) and asked the antiques store owner if there was a taxi driver in town. No. Anyone I could pay to give me a ride to Brenham? No. Fortunately a hot, young man was in the shop installing a new A/C unit and he called a friend. (He was 18 - cougar claws ACTIVATE!) He told me that his friend was in La Grange and was driving through town on her way to Brenham in a couple of hours. He got my number and promised to call when his friend got to town. I then walked around the corner to a restaurant, ordered sweet tea and fried pickles, and settled in.

An hour or so later I got a call from the young man and he said his friend was on her way. She turned out to be a charming, friendly young lady, about to start her freshman year at Texas A&M. She refused my offer of money and took me straight to the rental company. The woman at Enterprise turned out to also be super sweet. She apologized for not being able to pick me up and told me that if I hadn't shown up, she planned to call me and come get me anyway. She even gave me a discount on the extra fee I have to pay for returning the car in a different city. And then I was on my way again.

Now I'm at the hotel and I'm so incredibly drained. I've been mentally juggling my expenses in my head to figure out how to pay for everything and it's making me sick to my stomach. I'm literally on the verge of tears right now. It's probably mostly exhaustion and the after effects of the super-adrenaline-problem-solver mode I've been in all afternoon.

It still sucks. Totally sucks my ass. But today could have turned out so much more awful than I did. I got a huge dose of hometown hospitality and I'm so grateful to everyone that showed me kindness today. If there's no major engine damage or other problems with my car, the repair will only be a few hundred with parts and labor. The towing? That's another story, but I'll deal with it. I just have to keep moving forward. Whaddayagunnado?