As I drove towards the exit, I noticed a pair of blinkers on the freeway shoulder. Two shadows, barely visible except for their obfuscation of the blinkers behind them, waved their arms to the passing cars, mine included. I stopped a few meters in front of the blinking car. A woman came to my window and told me something about a flat tire. I turned on my parking lights, walked out of the car and asked more details about the matter. As I walked to them, I noticed the two shadows I saw earlier were women, and that there were 4 children in their back seat, all of them girls. They had a flat tire indeed, and though they had all the theory right about how to change it, they were having trouble loosening up 2 of the 5 screws, so they needed some extra torque to get the flat tire out.
"To the rescue!", I declared, as I put my hands on my waist and looked up to the moonlit sky, so they would know that help was here. I scoped out the tools they had, concluded they were enough, and I put my hands to the task. I put the jack under the car, grabbed the metal rod that attaches to it to make it rotate, and lifted the car up. They then told me that I was supposed to loosen the screws before I lifted the car, so a little embarrassed, I put it down again, and tried to loosen up the tire screws.
MAN were they HARD! Even though my shoulder is still in recovery, I can garnish pretty much all the strength I used to have in my arms, and MAN were those screws HARD. The whole car heaved back and forth as I pressed and pulled on both sides of the cross un-screwer thingy, but the screws just remained as tight as ever. So then I put most of my weight on one side of the cross while the woman and I pulled on the other side really hard, and then it finally turned a little bit. Ahh, what a relief. A few more pulls, and the screw slid off, soft as butter. The next screw was tougher. I stepped on it several times, each time very strongly, until suddenly I heard a very loud CLANG!! and the cross thingy turned, seeming very loosened, almost too loose. At first I was afraid I had broken it, but a few turns later, I realized that it was working fine, and the last screw was also coming out.
Then the routine flat tire procedure went through - lift the car, take out the flat, put on the spare, re-screw the tire on, lower the tire, done. As we worked, I found out the women were Macedonian, and I told them I was Guatemalan. The woman knew Spanish, and I remember this one thing she said:
"God Bless You! Qué bueno que paró! No que estos americanos pendejos no paran para ayudarlo a uno, por nada!! Y yo aquí que tengo a mis hijas adentro del carro!!"
I laughed at the comment, and then bid them good night. I went into my own car, turned on the engine, and drove away. A mile later, I turned back onto 94-E towards Chicago, then crossed the toll booth, having to pay $1.50 again, and then a few miles later, I was back where we started.
Funny thing was - I felt really good. I'd lost my way. I'd lost like 30-45 minutes of my time. I'd lost an unnecessary $3.00 at toll booths I didn't intend or need to go through. I'd spent a significant amount of expensive gasoline while doing all this. A moderately OCD person like me would be irked at that. I would've been, under other circumstances. But I wasn't bothered at all, not in the slightest. I was really happy I got lost and ended up there, actually, because I was able to make a positive difference in someone else's life. I feel I paid $3, time, and gasoline to be able to help someone, and it seems to me I got a great deal.
So yeah, $3 isn't really much money. It's less than what a Coke cost at Six Flags today. And an hour isn't that much time either. But I don't think it's about the amount. It's just that the positiveness of the helping seems to override everything else. There's something important to be learned here, and I'm figuring out exactly what it is.
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