A few days ago, I was on my way home from work. My drive is a thirty-minute commute between Evans and Thomson, Georgia. Let me define commute for those of you that may not have driven in the metropolitan area of Augusta, Georgia, after 5:00 P.M. Drivers are bat excrement crazy. Plain and simple. Think country outhouse rat hopped up on crack cocaine. This is a family column, so I’ll leave it at that.
There are two speeds in which you can participate in this asphalt death march. Drivers move at Steel foot NASCAR level or half past retired Granny Gertrude in the Model-T level. There is no in between and both paces are horrible ingredients to this traffic concoction.
Drivers like to wave at you with one finger as they pass by. The middle one. Drivers blow the horn. And they blown it again. And then AGAIN. That one always puzzles me because we are all in the same line. Dude, do you think blasting that horn is going to make the 19 cars ahead of you start moving? Oh, I forgot. The world revolves around you.
Drivers tailgate. Right on your bumper tailgate. Sitting in my backseat tailgate. I mean far enough up my bumper to make the local proctologist grin like the Grinch did when he got the awful idea of stealing Christmas. Again, how is that tailgating going to get you to your destination any faster?
Drivers throw their hands up in the air and some roll down their window to lean out and shout. They like to say some of those words that would get your mouth washed out with soap when I was a kid. You know, back before they deemed that discipline was child abuse. Some drivers like to scream and remind others that they are a rectum. Only they use a different word. Some people bark Gunnery Sergeant style and use that real bad word. Yes, the one Ralphie said when he dropped the lug nuts in the movie A Christmas Story.
And all this holiday fun and cheer takes place in a traffic sea lined with a shoreline of orange and white barrels. Oh, the beloved orange and white traffic barrel. How many can there be? And where do they store all these things? Columbia County, Georgia, must have 3,467,892 of them. Boy, I’d like to have the contract to manufacture all these barrels that have been out here since stagecoaches drawn by horses traversed this road when it was a dirt path. Just a few thoughts I ponder as I sit attempting to merge over to the turn lane to get home to see my wife after a long day.
Then…some guy yelled at me.
“What idiot gave you a driver’s license?!?!”
Ever ready with my response, I rolled the window down and shouted back, “The Georgia State Patrol. I see you went to the same place to get your license.”
He waved with the one finger and said a couple of Ralphie words…
So, I’m heading home with all this surrounding road rage going on. As I approach the intersection of Columbia Road and William Few Parkway, otherwise known as The Trail of Tears, my car decides to die. I mean shut off and not crank back up. The traffic light is red and I’m desperately trying to get her to turn over and crank.
“Come on, baby! Fire up! Lord, PLEASE let this thing crank!”
While I’m turning that key and praying, the traffic light inevitably turns green. Here we go. Tires squealing. Horns blowing. Tailgaters inching ever closer. Middle fingers waving. Shouters shouting. Five golden rings. And a partridge in a pear tree.
There was nothing I could do other than to put the car in neutral, open the driver’s door, get my rear end out in the cold night and push. The traffic in the nearby lane was whizzing at NASCAR level, and I couldn’t even push at Granny Gertrude speed. I was afraid I was going to get hit. I began pushing with that Fred Flintstone foot power as the driver behind me weighed in on the situation.
“You dumb donkey!! (Think another word for donkey here). Get the Ralphie word out of the way!!”
His jacked-up truck would have made the redneck-i-est of rednecks swell with pride. Tires as tall as I am and six-row LED light set that made the skeleton inside my flesh show.
“I’m sorry, sir. It won’t crank.” I shouted back.
I was hoping he would help me, but he squalled those 16-million-dollar tires around me leaving me pushing in exhaust fumes. The cars behind him did the same. I just kept pushing and praying that I would get it off the road before I got hit. My head was on a swivel looking to where I was pushing and constantly checking behind me and beside me for oncoming traffic. I saw three BMWs pass by at the speed of the Millennium Falcon. A hundred more cars passed. Toyotas. SUVs. Hondas. Two or three Mercedes. I kept pushing towards the edge of the road ahead while the fingers waved, horns blew, and shouting continued.
Finally, in the cold night, a man in a beat-up Ford F-150 pulls up beside me and slows down to my walking pace. While the horns behind him blared, he said he was going to pull over and help me. He drove his truck through the intersection, pulled over to the edge, and ran back across the highway through suicide traffic rush. He was an older man in dirty work clothes on his way home from a day of manual labor.
As he ran around to the back of my car, an old, rusted Chevy truck pulled over. A young Hispanic man hopped out. He ran to the back of my car to join the other man for a push. The three of us had her rolling now and would hopefully get the job done before anyone got hurt. We got the car to the place where it was safe, and we were safe, too.
Before I could say a word, the Hispanic man offered me his phone. “Help… Help?” That’s mostly what I understood through his broken English. I shook his hand and showed him that I had a phone.
“Gracias, amigo,” I said and he laughed. He patted me on the back and ran back to his beat-up Chevy truck.
“Feliz Navidad!” He shouted above the whizzing traffic as he ran off to his truck.
I turned to the older gentleman and shook his rugged hand. I thanked him so much for stopping and helping.
“That’s what we’re supposed to do, right? The Lord wants us to help those in need.”
And that He does. The Lord does want us to help those in need, and we don’t have to look far to see need all around us. To see those that are “broken down in the middle of traffic.” It was cold that night and my wallet was empty from paying for a tow, but my heart was warm. All those BMWs passing by…SUVs and Mercedes speeding on…but two men were willing to do what was not convenient for them to help a guy in need.
How willing are you? When we see a need, do we whiz on by and think “that’s too bad” or we think “someone else will help?”
It’s Christmas. Don’t be too busy being busy to notice those that need help. Don’t be too busy whizzing by in your car. Be the one that gives a meal to the one that needs it the most. Be the one that gives up your seat or your place in line. Be the one that takes time to talk to a lonely person. Be the one that buys a cup of coffee for a cold stranger. Be the one that puts a coat on a child’s back because her single mother can’t afford one.
See the need in traffic. Be the one that gives a gift so that others may know THE GIFT we’ve been given.
Philippians 2: 3 – 4 “…in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of others.”
