Thanks Scooter!
Oh my god, you guys. Erica and I have just made it through almost an entire month of house guests (and/or perilous road trips to foreign countries.) The last visitors checked out of Hotel San Chulo about two hours ago and I haven’t had pants on since. It’s not like I’ve been dying to walk around without pants on or anything, I’m just enjoying the fact that I can.
Now don’t get me wrong, I really love having visitors and I really, really love all of the people who’ve passed through over the last three and a half weeks, it was just a really, really, really long run. Plus, in between guests #3 and #4, we took a trip to Canada for a ”vacation” that ended up being way more challenging than we’d anticipated.
Okay. I saw the “maintenance required” sign before we left, but it was 6 AM and you know, it’s a long way from Brooklyn to Toronto. I didn’t want to waste time on something that was probably one of those, ”That’s been on for years,” things.
So I ignored it.
I ignored it all the way from Park Slope to wherever were when we met Scooter.
He came to the window and lit his cigarette before he spoke.
Scooter was the tow truck driver that AAA sent to pick us up.
Once he had his first cigarette and pronounced the clutch dead, Scooter told us, “I can take you to the garage in Le Roy, but you probably won’t get it back until Tuesday or Wednesday.” It was Friday afternoon. “Your best bet’s gonna be Buffalo, they might be able to do it by Monday evening.” Being pushy city-folk and refusing to believe we couldn’t get a clutch replaced in less than 48 hours, we all jumped on our respective smart phones to find a solution. Unfortunately, Scooter was right and the best option we had was an AAMCO that was almost 50 miles away.
There's only one way to get a shot like this.
Obviously, the thought of flying down the interstate while chained to a flatbed was terrifying, but only two of us could fit in the cab with Scooter. So, rather than choosing one of us to go alone, we all decided to take the trip in the defunct Civic.
After a full hour of riding on the tow truck, we finally arrived at AAMCO, which was closed. No problem. Scooter said that he figured they might be. “It’s fine. Just throw your keys in the slot on the garage door. They’ll look at it when they come in tomorrow.” Have I mentioned that this was a borrowed car? So, yeah. There was that.
Then we found out that Enterprise, the “We’ll pick you up,” company, doesn’t necessarily do that if it’s 15-minutes-before-closing on a Friday afternoon. Even if you’re only a mile away from them. Even if your only other option is to ride shotgun with Scooter.
On the way to the rental office, Scooter tried to convince me to stay in Buffalo for the night, while I tried to get a good picture of him for the blog.
The good news is that Scooter got me to Enterprise on time, I rented a Jeep and within 20 minutes we had transferred all our stuff, dropped our friend’s keys in the slot on the garage door, and were back on the road headed for Toronto.
And that’s how it all began. Tune in next time for my follow up story about Erica’s fake visit to Niagara Falls.
September 30th, 2011 at 6:25 am
Was it a fake visit to the real Niagara Falls?