You were right.
The roads were a slick mess and the rain was coming down so hard, I could barely see through my windshield. I drove by car after car pulled off to the side of the highway, cars spun out in ditches, cars lined up at every exit. All of the motel signs I passed had their ‘no vacancy’ lights on. It was coming down hard and fast. My eyes were strained from focusing so hard, but I kept telling myself to just get through this bad patch and then I could pull over and take a little coffee break. And a bathroom break, thanks to that large coffee and Big Gulp I had.
Up ahead of me was a small silver Civic, half off the road. I looked in the window as I passed and there was a woman sitting in the driver’s seat with her hands covering her face, looking completely freaked out. I pulled over to the side and reversed my truck until I was just in front of her car. I threw on my baseball hat and hopped out of my truck.
As I made my way back to her car, she got out and met me halfway.
“Thank you so much for stopping,” she called over the rain in a shaky voice. As I got closer I realized she was closer to my grandma’s age than my mom’s.
“No problem. Looks like your front end is stuck in the mud, huh?”
“Yeah, I slid off the road and now I can’t get out.”
“Let’s see if we can get you out of here and on your way. I have chains in my truck to pull you out. I’ll be right back.”
About 20 minutes later, I waved goodbye to her and climbed back into my truck with a fresh blueberry pie. Turns out, the sweet old lady was out in this weather delivering pies to her church so they would have them for their bake sale this weekend. She tried to give me money after I pushed her car out. I said absolutely not, so she insisted that I at least take a pie. How could I tell her no? I pulled out my phone and took a picture of the pie and sent it to my mom with a text that said…
At least if I skid off the road and no one can find me, I won’t be hungry tonight.
She should love that text. I laughed to myself as I put my phone back in the center compartment of my truck. It chirped a minute later and before I even opened the phone, I was pretty sure I was in trouble.
DO NOT make me come and find you. Eyes on the road, Mister.
I swear she would still ground me if she could. She was right though; the roads were getting worse by the minute and I needed to pay attention. Four very slow and torturous miles later, I decided if I was going to continue I needed a gas station and a bathroom, fast. After a quick pit stop, I pulled out of the gas station with a full gas tank and a fresh cup of coffee in hand. I turned back toward the highway and continued through the stoplight that I just came from.
That’s when panic hit me. There were no other stoplights anywhere around.
“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me!” I yelled out loud, startling a sleeping Diesel on the passenger seat. Out of all the damn exits I passed, I picked the only one without a returning entrance back on the highway. I angrily pulled a U-turn and sulked back into the gas station then left as fast as I could with my tail between my legs.
A few minutes later, we were back on track, I hoped. “Ok, Diesel, that dude said the road should be coming up here on our right, but honestly, I have no idea where the hell we are. If you ever let me leave the house again without grabbing my GPS, you’ll sleep on the porch for a week.” Diesel cocked his head to the side and lifted one ear at me. I reached over and patted the top of his head.
Suddenly, I slammed on my brakes and jerked my truck to the right, almost missing the road we needed to get back to the highway. Thunder crashed so loud it shook my truck, and lightning lit up the gloomy sky. My truck splashed and pounded its way through deep puddles on the country road. I was never so thankful for my truck lift than at that very moment. An orange blinking light up ahead caught my attention. As I got closer to the wooden bridge, my hands gripped the steering wheel tight in frustration. I took a deep breath and counted to ten as I watched the blinking light on the orange saw-horse in front of me. The saw-horse had been stenciled with the words BRIDGE CLOSED and had yellow caution tape all over it.
“Well buddy, that damn blueberry pie joke might just turn around and bite us in the ass, huh?”
Once again, I turned the truck around and started back where I came from. On my right, I noticed another dirt road that looked like it led further into the middle of nowhere.