A Flat Tire, A Mountain Road

“Dad, guess what I did.” I say holding back excitement into the phone.

“You bought a house.”

“What? No!” He does this every time, and every time I forget that he does this. My dad has been hinting at me buying a house since I graduated college in 2005.

“Dad, I changed my car tire today.”

“Oh, that’s good!” I envision him smiling on the other side of the line when he says this. And yes folks, I am 36 and a full-grown ass woman, and yet still it seems no matter how old I am I on some base level seek approval from my dad, a rare treat when given. He’s the first person I thought of when I lifted the thin base of the trunk floor to reveal a spare donut and set of tools.

Here’s how it all went down.

I had just finished a relaxing weekend at a little cabin getaway close to Skyline Drive in Virginia and the majestic Blue Ridge Mountains. I made fire using kindling composed of sticks gathered in the open patch of land surrounding the cabin. I sat in a hot tub with just me, wine, the woods, and the outline of mountains in the distance. I looked up at the stars on a clear night and was awestruck by how many there were without light pollution. Are we even looking at the same sky in the city? I used binoculars to get a closer look at noisy birds perched in adjacent trees. I was having a real outdoor experience you know, feeling pretty authentic. Most of all, it was relaxing. The wine helped, as it often does.

The pandemic has the world operating on a base level of anxiety and I’ve been following the rules but it just occurred to me that I can shelter in place elsewhere for a weekend and still not come into contact with anyone. I needed to slow down and breathe, to not worry about the world around me, to get out of the city and get some peace. So on Friday I packed my car with some clothes, some food rations, wine, and being ambitious I packed a months worth of books but I wanted to finish Untamed by Glennon Doyle and start Wow, No Thank You by Samantha Irby and why must we choose between such strikingly beautiful things? I considered this weekend escape essential travel, and there’s no one volunteering to pay the therapy bills that will surely rack up post-quarantine, so this is what I’ve got to do.

By Sunday morning I was loading up my car to return home, and snapping some last minute photos of those mountains in the distance. I wanted to linger. This calm that pulsed through me now, a gentle river flowing that would carry be back on down to the big city. I was looking forward to the drive to Baltimore, about 2.5 hours, and it would be scenic. Let’s go.

A few minutes in, I feel my car rumbling like I was on a gravel road, except the road was smooth. I slow down a little, and it hit me instantly, I’ve got a flat tire. Dammit. I slowly pull to the side of the road to let others drive around me. It’s one of those two lane roads with sparsely anything around.

Immediately up ahead, there’s an open parking lot and a sign that says “Rileyville Baptist Church.” Not my first choice for such a quiet stretch of road, but in broad daylight I figured I should be okay. That and, it’s much better to get the car off the road. I put on my emergency blinkers and slowly roll into safety. After parking the car off to the side of the lot, I get out to assess the damage. Yup, the driver’s side tire is completely flat. Perfect.

First thing I do is pull out my cell phone. No signal. Thanks TMobile. Out of curiosity, I walked up to the church doors to see if there was anyone who could help. There are signs taped to the windows that say “wash your hands” and “worship with us online.” I hear some noise inside and see another notice that says “live worship taping in progress, do not disturb.” Cool cool.

I walked back out to my car and open up the trunk. Whelp, I can totally do this, right? I mean if you’re gonna get a flat tire, it should definitely be on a Sunday morning during a pandemic when everything is closed, on a stretch of random mountain road in Rileyville, VA, where there is no cell service and the closest place to pull into is a baptist church parking lot. Life is most definitely a comedy.

The last time I had a flat tire was about 15 years ago. I was newly out of college and oddly enough driving in Virginia. I was meeting someone for a first date and was woefully unprepared for any car shenanigans. Luckily my date was able to find this helpless flipflop-wearing damsel sheepishly smiling on the side of the road, and he assisted me through removing the tire.

Nonetheless, this time I had my hiking sneakers on. So I already felt 10 times more prepared. After some fumbling around I got the carjack in place and after what felt like an eternity later, the car was high enough off the ground to get to the tire. I felt the sun on my back, sweat dripping, and heard the buzzing of bees in the field next to the lot. Not a cloud in the sunny blue sky. No shade in sight.

As I got the last bolt off, a woman wearing a mask, with long flowing blonde and grey hair, came over. Her name was Peggy and she was part of the worship crew that was inside the church earlier. I was at that point painfully aware that the flat tire needed some forceful persuasion to be removed from my car. Luckily, she was also in carpentry and happened to have a crowbar in her truck to help.

Soon after, the pastor came over with another worship crew member. I am not prepared to meet anyone from church on this day (or most days). I’m in yoga pants with a long sleeve t-shirt and I’m not even wearing a bra (what? Bras were laid off in the pandemic!).

Pastor John is now kneeling beside my car where my tire should be. Peggy goes to get a rock to place under my back wheel, just in case.

“We had this happen before, a couple of weeks ago...” he said grabbing the spare tire.

“Oh, is that how you get them in here on a Sunday?” I smirked. And clearly I had been isolated for so long I’d forgotten how to talk to strangers, as normally such jokes might not fly in mixed company. But he laughed with me and started tightening the bolts.

Meanwhile, Peggy is telling me there’s a tire place in town about 25 minutes away. I’ve got no cell service to GPS directions and almost thought of just chancing it to get there. But then I thought about how it’s one thing to have an unexpected situation occur like a flat tire, but something completely different to knowingly put myself at further risk. I’m two hours away from Baltimore and I shouldn’t do that distance on a donut. I sometimes shy away from asking for help; an independent streak from my youth that tends to get me into trouble. So I spoke up.

“Actually I don’t have service, can you call them to see if they’re open? And then I can copy down the address.” They were open, thank goodness.

I was way off my estimated time for this drive back to the city. As we were packing up my truck with the old tire and tools, and they were basically sending me on my way, Pastor John asked “and how can we pray for you today?”

This is a question I was somewhat dreading. It exists in the grey area of wanting to respect the beliefs of others while also not lessening my own experience and views. Is the middle of a small town church parking lot really the place to counter such a question with a kind stranger whose last name I’ll never know? How do I respond politely without opening up a theological debate about the alleged merits of prayer and my non-religious beliefs? The truth is, regardless of what this question means to him, the worship team helped me change my tire today.

I felt my pause and shoulders tense for just a moment and took a deep breath to coax them into relaxing. I chose the lighter response of going with the flow. “Pray I have a smooth trip home,” I said and smiled. I thanked them, got in my car, and turned right onto the winding country road.