“911, what’s your emergency?” the dispatcher asked me.
“Sorry, it’s not an emergency,” I replied.
I told her I wanted to play it safe after a vehicle had just swerved sharply around my precariously parked car in the middle of the street. I hoped that if a police vehicle was nearby, it could park behind me to possibly prevent a potential accident.
I had just run over a truck-sized spare tire that was abandoned on the road. I presumed it had just fell off a large pickup truck. The metal device to hold the spare tire underneath the bed of a truck also was on the road. It looked like it rusted off.
I tried driving around the tire. I couldn’t do it in time. Thump! By the time my car came to a stop, the tire was wedged underneath the chassis between my driver-side front and rear tires. It was jammed so tightly that I couldn’t drive forward or backward.
I was stuck. In the dark. Before calling a friend or a tow truck, I called police to be safe.
I turned on my hazard lights, hopped out of my car, and tried pulling out the tire from underneath my car. It wouldn’t budge. I tried rocking my car back and forth while kicking out the tire with my foot. Of course it didn’t work.
This all happened within eye-shot of my home around 6 p.m. Monday. A neighbor had just returned home near where my car was stuck. He suggested using a jack to lift up my car just enough to pull out the tire. But he didn’t have one handy, and neither did I.
My car, a 2004 Chevy Monte Carlo with 300,000 miles, is held together with rust and promises. I call her “Old Betsy.” Every dashboard warning light is simultaneously activated every time I start my car. I never know when to “check engine” because that particular light has been on since the Obama administration.
I refuse to junk Old Betsy, or fix everything that’s wrong with her, or pronounce her dead until I absolutely have to. So I plead with her again and again: “Come on, baby, just give me one more year.” I haven’t seen Betsy’s jack in years. My trunk is loaded with so much stuff, mostly sporting goods. I also haven’t seen my spare tire in years.
I have the mechanical skills of a Frisbee. Brute force is my only skilled labor. Otherwise, I’m stuck. Like a stranger’s spare tire wedged under Betsy.
“You should ask Shawn,” my neighbor told me. “He’ll have the right jack.”
I hustled to the home of that neighbor, Shawn Ellison, who has more tools in his garage than I’ve likely owned in my life. I rang the doorbell while keeping an eye on my stranded car. Fortunately, Shawn was home from work.
“I’ll be right there,” he told me.
Shawn pulled out a rolling jack, surveyed my odd predicament, and crawled underneath my car to search for a lift spot. He didn’t think twice. I would have searched for a pair of gloves and an excuse not to do it. While Shawn disappeared under my car, a Valparaiso police officer pulled up behind us and turned on his flashers.
“I ran over a spare tire,” I told the officer. “No, it wasn’t mine.”
He was understanding and patient as Shawn adjusted his jack under the car. It didn’t reach it flush so Shawn said a small wooden block would do the trick. Small wooden block? I checked my pockets. Nothing. How about an old baseball mitt or three Frisbees stacked together, I thought. I have a trunk-full of alternatives.
“I’ve got one,” Shawn said, hustling back into his garage.
I crawled underneath my car to make sure my exhaust pipes didn’t get damaged by the spare tire. Old Betsy already sounds like someone who has been smoking for 70 years. She doesn’t purr. She growls.
The next thing I hear is the sound of a power saw from Shawn’s garage. He not only found a wooden block in less than a minute, he was sawing it to size for this job. Incredible. He returned to the scene, hoisted up the jack, and lifted my car a few inches. I yanked out the spare tire and rolled it to the curb.
The officer, Steve, joked that it was his easiest call that day.
I drove Betsy home, hoping she wasn’t permanently injured by my stupidity. Her rusting side molding on the driver side was bent down even more than usual. By a stroke of serendipity, the incident somehow stopped the loud noise I’ve heard every time I opened my driver side door. It now opens quietly like it did years ago.
I ran back to Shawn’s house to thank him. He saved my butt. I wanted him to know. I’d still be there scratching my head and rocking Betsy. He downplayed his rescue effort.
“That’s what neighbors are for,” he said, shaking my hand.
From what I’ve learned over the past 10 years as Shawn’s neighbor, the two of us are different in most every way, including politically if campaign signs are any indicator. He’s a guy’s guy. I’m, uh, a guy.
None of that mattered. When I needed help, he was there for me. No questions asked. No complaints. No problem. I then sent a Facebook message to thank that other neighbor who offered me a hand. His name also is Sean. “That’s what neighbors are for. Anytime, buddy,” Sean Corbett replied.
I walked home thinking it’s too convenient for most people to erect imaginary fences between us – politically, socially, racially, ethnically, financially, you name it. Sometimes it takes an accident or incident to “thump” us out of our familiar avenue of thinking.
I’m still mad at myself for not swerving in time to dodge that tire. But I would have missed the message it drove home for me.
