Then things got really interesting. We had to set the emergency brake when we dropped A.J. off, and the emergency brake locked on one of our rear wheels. Noticing something was amiss, we pulled off in the parking lot of an old factory with our rear wheel pouring smoke. It was almost 5:00 on a Sunday. We will be forever grateful for a man named Jonathan at the local Pep Boys who put us in contact with a mechanic friend named Howard who spent the next five hours tracking down parts and getting us back on the road.
Roadside Assistance (which we have for only 10,000 more miles!) got the ol' minivan towed for us. The driver was a conspiracy theorist with PTSD, and we couldn't ride in the tow truck cab due to COVID, but an Ub*r was on the way, so we sent the tow truck on to the auto parts store where Howard was going to replace the brakes. The Ub*r driver pulled up to us sitting alone in the abandoned factory parking lot with no vehicle, said, "I can't take that many of you," and drove off. L*ft had no drivers available, and the taxi companies weren't answering their phones.
Through the miracle of F*ceb**k, we got into contact with Stephanie, who was in school with us 20 years ago at Asbury College and now lives in Knoxville. Every once in a while, social media is more than the hellscape of craziness that it so often can be. Stephanie came and picked up Amy and the girls, and Howard came in his girlfriend's Hummer and took Matt to go in search of the correct brake caliper before all the auto parts stores closed.
While Amy and the girls hung out with Stephanie, Matt held a flashlight while Howard replaced the seized-up brake in the dark in a closed auto parts store parking lot. Howard did an incredibly selfless thing to give up his evening like he did to get this poor family back on the road. He earned every one of the cigarettes he smoked along the way. His girlfriend was a little miffed that he bailed on date night, so Matt bought a restaurant gift card so Howard could take his girl out for a nice dinner. Howard even called the next morning to make sure we got home okay. We can't express how much we owe to his kindness. And all the fun new applications for common everyday swear words.
We were back on the road by 9:30 and were zipping along northward, laughing along to a Jim Gaffigan album, when we came on a rolling roadblock, where the police blocked all three lanes of I-75 while road crews filled potholes. That significantly dampened our exhausted spirits. We finally got home and were in bed by about 1:00am.An adventure that was a nightmare almost from start to finish was something that could certainly have been much worse. We could still be sitting in an abandoned factory parking lot, waiting for Knoxville Taxi to call us back. (They never did.) When someone asked us how we would handle sending A.J. off to Army, we confidently commented that our family typically does not get too up or down about things, but we roll with whatever comes our way. So why should we be surprised that our coping skills were tested later that day? Above all, we are thankful to be home, safe but a little tired. Okay, a lot tired.
