Call Box

Hearing from Kaitlin that she had only been to L.A. twice (once for Jeopardy! tryouts, and once to go to LAX) sparked a museum trip during our break. Plans were made, times set, and we set off for our culture hunt. We almost made it all the way out of Hemet, too, before needing to call a tow truck.

On our way to the 10, the very large truck in front of me swerved into the center divider to avoid a bag of plastic bottles in the road. Remembering both my driver's ed class and the urgings of my parents, I did not swerve, but instead hit the bag with my very short car, using the engine to drag this refuse out of everyone's way. We pulled over and lied down in the shoulder to pull all of the bottles out, then continued on. The car sounded normal for a few miles, but soon started to handle differently than usual. We pulled over again to look for missed bottles, found none, then tried to take off again. It started making horrendous noises and we finally stopped for good. My cell phone had no signal, so it was off to the call box. The woman who answered kept trying to calm me down, even though I was doing just fine.

The Barrs were great sports about sitting there in the hot car with the time clock of our L.A. day ticking away. When the truck finally arrived, I explained our troubles to Jon from San Jacinto, he examined the car, and found a two and a half gallon water bottle wedged between the driver's side front tire and hub (I did not lie down on the highway side of the car to check there). He wrenched it out and told me to drive up to the next exit and see how it felt. Sure enough, everything was fine, and he radioed the towing mother ship to get permission to waive any fees (slipped him some cash anyway) and we were on our way. Stupid bottles.