Rainy track meet replete with recall activity

It was a dark and rainy night. Actually, a dark and rainy afternoon at an “away” track meet. The weather report for the day was so turbulent that I threw an extra umbrella and towels in the car “just in case.” The day did not disappoint.

Borrowing the cell phone of a teenager whose parents clearly love her much more than I love my cell-phoneless children, my daughter called 30 minutes before I was to leave work to come watch, to inform me the track team was still sitting on the bus, waiting out the downpour. It it didn’t stop and the lightning continued, the meet would be cancelled.

Great. The only thing worse than driving somewhere for something directly after work is driving to nowhere for nothing directly after work. I chose to set out, anyway. A lifetime of Michigan living has taught me the weather would likely reverse itself during my journey, so I might as well take my chances.

My chances paid off. By the time I pulled into the track parking lot, I no longer needed to use my windshield wipers. Interestingly, I had begun my day in a bigger city in the opposite direction, having my already-fixed and functioning windshield wipers replaced at a GM dealership. A year ago, they suddenly stopped working. Lots of rain over the few days I had to wait for their repair made driving challenging when I couldn’t see through my rain-streaked windshield.

Naturally, I took the problem to my local repair shop, where, $245 in parts and labor later, I was once again able to see things before I ran into them. Four months later, I received a recall notice from GM. I was told they would keep me posted on what to do next, but if I’d experienced a wiper problem and had it repaired, I should stay tuned for reimbursement instructions.

Reimbursement appealed to me. After going several months without word on the situation, I went online to the company’s recall portal. That got me to customer service, which connected me to the closest GM service center, which informed I would have to get my wiper transmission re-replaced.

“But I don’t need anything replaced,” I protested, hating to have to miss more time from work over stupid windshield wipers. “My trusted, small-town mechanic already did that.” I was then informed that in order to get reimbursed for the previous repair, I would have to have the GM-certified technician at the GM dealership re-fix what was no longer broken. Ca-ching! Suddenly it made (dollars and) sense to me!

Back at the track meet, I experienced a similar feeling of all-rightness. Huddling in the stands with friends, my raincoat hood cinched tightly around my face, I remembered the rain-soaking I took on the pre-qualifying night for track regionals as a high school senior. I was there high-jumping and each leap into the rain-soaked pit was a backward plunge into a sopping wet sponge. Ironically, I got soaked for nothing, as I did not place in high-jump at the regional level. However, I had another race to run and didn’t want to do that soaked and freezing. What to do?

“Would you like to dry your clothes?” asked a newly familiar voice. It belonged to an athlete from the hosting school, on whom I had a huge crush. He lived just two blocks away and was offering me the use of his parents’ clothes dryer.

In a move that had the potential to get us both in big trouble, I left the track meet and walked with him to his house. I wore something of his and we hung out in his basement while my uniform stuff dried. It was the start of a 35-year friendship where we’ve been there for one another during many subsequent storms of life. Those supportive ties have had us drying one another’s tears many more times in faith and love than that one track apparel occasion.

So matter how wet, cold, windy and dark the track meet became the other night, nothing could destroy the warmth of those cherished memories – except perhaps if the newly, unnecessarily-fixed windshield wiper transmission quit working on the way home.

Driven to distraction by driver education

On Good Friday morning, I quickly discovered it was not going to be a good Friday, no matter what the calendar said. I’d started getting sick after work the night before, not helped by having to watch a track meet, playing piano for a Maundy Thursday service, then returning to work while awaiting one kid getting out of driver education class and the other returning on the track bus.

It would have been a grueling night under normal circumstances (as if there has been such a thing in forever), but the back-to-back responsibilities became unbearable as illness overtook my body. My back started aching, my head throbbing and I felt overheated, then chilled, without identifiable cause.

Finally back home, I did the minimum before crawling into bed at 10:45 PM, knowing full well I should have drugged myself to the gills with cold and flu meds four hours earlier and hunkered down to ride out the illness storm. But that luxury was not available. Pulling over and puking onto the shoulder of the road between responsibilities was. So I took it. Work with what you’ve got.

Doing my best to clean myself using fast food napkins and a winter hat some unfortunate person made the mistake of leaving in the car, I couldn’t help but wonder if this scenario was covered in my son’s driver education manual, perhaps in a chapter called “Driving During Illness and Other Times When You Really Shouldn’t Be on the Road, But Have No Choice.”

That chapter could cover things like selecting the right angle for the seat to minimize vertigo; creative ways to disguise roadside diarrhea detour behavior when there’s no bathroom for miles when most needed (including creative use of bank envelopes and road maps in the absence of toilet paper); and use of wiper fluid to help rinse down expired medications you fortuitously found down the seat.

I could barely lift my head after putting it on my bed pillow, but I held the Michigan Traffic Safety Education Student Manual above my face, making its wisdom visible by lamplight. Half the cover was torn off, as if by a hungry student in the backseat who had forgotten to eat before a practice drive with a partner, and it was bound by duct tape: a fitting metaphor for how I would characterize my nearly 40 years of driving experience.

Chapter Five outlined the SIPDE System, which stands for “Search, Identify, Predict Decide and Execute (meaning to take action, rather than kill someone),” the recommended approach to proactive driving. In other words, taking charge of those things over which you have control to improve your driving. I didn’t like that the chapter began, “You should consider it improper to drive when a factor that will negatively affect your ability to drive is present.” I knew they were talking to me, but I ignored it. Cough, cough.

In addition to the driver education manual, my son also had a booklet from Michigan Secretary of State, Ruth Johnson, “What Every Driver Must Know.” If I were Secretary of State I could save a whole lot of trees by supplying kids with a single, bookmark-sized paper that says, “Assume all drivers are idiots and drive accordingly.” That pretty much sums it up.

Over the years, most of my driving-related discussions/arguments with my backseat-driver son have centered around his single-dimension perspective of being in the driver’s seat, while I have emphasized that driving is as much about the context you are in as it is your intentions. Snow and rain storms don’t care that you’d like visibility; other drivers don’t care that you have limited time to get somewhere; road potholes are oblivious to your need to stay within your lane and deer don’t give a darn about keeping your front bumper and car hood dent-free.

I told my son that I even do the unthinkable: when I need to pay extra attention to traffic, I sometimes turn off the radio! What?! That’s ridiculous! How extreme! When my son takes his driver education test, he will likely parrot all the “right answers.” However, like most education, they are only the fundamentals. The real fun begins further down the road.

Business closings feel like life’s closing in

Took my daughter to the sporting goods store the other night hoping to get her the perfect pair of track spikes, only to be reminded by getting hit in the head by one of the huge, low-hanging “EVERYTHING MUST GO!” signs that M.C. Sporting Goods was going out of business.

Our favorite sales associate was as courteous as always and brought back several pairs of shoes for Kate to try. Unfortunately, too many other final sale shoppers in her size had been there ahead of us. Everything left was too big or small. No shoes there for Kate. And it’s a shame, as they’ve always had styles she liked.

So we got back in the car to go to Dunham’s at Lakeview Square Mall, which necessitated driving past the once proud, but newly-vacant Macy’s department store, and the less-freshly closed, but as shuttered and de-cluttered Don Pablo’s, which had also been a favorite haunt.

My daughter and I entered the mall through the corridor between J.C. Penney, which recently announced upcoming closure and Barnes & Noble, probably also headed the way of the retail dinosaur, whether or not its coffee shop has remained popular among those who prefer caffeine to reading.

“This makes me really sick,” I said to my daughter as we left the mall, bag in-hand containing a pair of basic, yet ugly track spikes that, as the default affordable choice, were going to have to suffice for this track season. It was the night before the first track meet and last-minute beggars can’t be choosers.

“They’re just shoes,” my daughter said.

“I’m not talking about the shoes,” I responded. “I’m talking about all of the places we shop or eat being closed either nationally or in the nearby towns where we go to buy things.” It had already happened to our small town.

In an attempt to turn around the shopping experience, I offered to take her to Wendy’s for the 4/$4 special; however, too late I recalled the Wendy’s by the mall had recently closed. So, I turned my car around in the Target Plaza, which used to be home to the defunct Old Country Buffet, but continues to house Family Christian, another retailer in the process of liquidating its assets, not just its physical stores, but online, as well. How frustrating.

I went into Family Christian the following day and felt fraudulently comforted that despite the clearance and store closing signs plastered everywhere, things were still mostly in the places of the store where they always were. It fed my denial that the store closing was not really happening. But the part of me that has seen this happen with other stores knew better. All inventory had been put out and marked down, including stuff from the backroom and stuff formerly at the store’s warehouses. The illusion of fullness was just that: an illusion.

Poking through things made me feel like a looter among the ruins of what had once been a thriving culture. Although the usual Christian music soundtrack played upliftingly in the background, my fellow customers were deathly quiet, like at a somber funeral visitation of someone who had died too young and without warning. No one knew what to say, so we opted for a respectful silence toward this institution that had been a mainstay in our lives whether we needed a Bible, a DVD, a book or bookmark.

Suddenly, I realized there would be no more poring over multiple greeting cards to find just the right words of encouragement for a friend in spiritual need; no more anticipatory excitement at picking up the intriguing book I had just watched a “Life Today” TV show guest discuss; and no more side-by-side comparing translations of Bibles to be purchased as gifts. Worse yet, no more impromptu faith-deepening conversations with other Family Christian shoppers and employees.

Family Christian’s closure is far more impactful than having to settle for unlikeable track spikes. It’s a complete derailing of a major hands-on resource and gathering place for people of faith. Online shopping simply will not suffice. I tell myself to have faith that something new and viable will emerge in its place. Family Christian: rest in peace.

Waiting to feel the growth properties of waiting

My son told me about the Segment I session of driver education that’s offered locally – two days before the session was to commence. There’s nothing like waiting until the last minute.

Ironically, some other things, including car repair, had to wait in order for my unanticipated $285 driver education tuition check to not bounce. My son seemed neither to notice nor care. He had driving on the mind and came home all jazzed from the initial meeting with a calendar full of random dates and times, subject to change, when he’d either be in class or driving with his partner and the instructor. I nearly soiled myself.

Random change is the arch-enemy of the single-parent household. Logistical coordination is already a Herculean enough effort without any extra outside variability, which we already get enough of through my working at a funeral home. There is no predictability or consistency in relation to when people pass away. If there starts to be, think serial killer scenario. But seriously, given the degree of variability at work, maintaining a routine in areas of life where possible is important.

I truly appreciated that with the Athens Follies, my daughter’s rehearsal schedule was outlined two months in advance. No surprises. I also like that her track schedule was distributed at the first practice. And my church piano playing piano at the same time on Sundays is a given. However, trying to hit all those marks with the wild card dealt by driver education is disabling my winning hand.

Additional piano subbing at a church 25 miles from home on a Wednesday night during Lent collapsed our house of cards. I had to hit the road that night 45 minutes before my son’s driver education class began.

“But Mom, you can’t just drop me off 45 minutes early for class,” he protested. “I don’t want to wait that long. It’s just wrong.” Really?! How long do you think it took me to earn the money for the driver education tuition? How many hours of work equals my monthly car payment and auto insurance? And did I win just win some lottery where the prize was free fuel and maintenance? Like I give a rat’s patootie about the inconvenience of his 45-minute wait. And I told him so, rather colorfully.

My thumbscrews were already being tightened between two doctor’s appointments for my mother, tooth extraction for my daughter and the follow-up appointment for her braces to be put on. I had to stand on my head to carve out time for that one, which ended up getting cancelled by our dentist because he got called for jury duty. The scheduling gods must be crazy! All those appointments cause me to have to re-configure my already treacherous schedule and then to have to wait while everyone’s needs (except mine) get met. Vicious cycle.

As I was waiting at one of my mom’s appointments, I read an article that quoted Romans 5:3-4 (NIV), which addresses trials and waiting: “Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; character hope.”

While I would like to report that I was instantly overcome with a Christ-like calm, I wasn’t. However, that reminder gave perspective: I recognized that at some point in life, I became better at waiting and still, at times, cling to a thread of hope, that hopefully isn’t attached to some anvil that’s about to fall on my head, as ill-fated as Wile E. Coyote.

At lifehack.org, Dianne J. Wilson blogged in agreement with the Bible, giving 10 reasons why waiting is good: priorities become clear, you develop perseverance, learn productive habits, understand yourself better, rest and regroup, grow patience, become more resourceful, expand your tolerance and empathy, expand your capacity and develop a grateful acceptance of delays.

Instead of resenting the inconvenience of waiting, my son should regard the 45 minutes he was early for driver education as valuable character-building time! And I am doing the same, writing this at 11:45 pm, in my car, as I await the return of the track team bus. The real question I have is why does Heaven have to wait?!