Just-in-time service

Late this afternoon I found myself stranded in the parking lot at a Marathon station with a river of trucks zooming past on one side and the Little Kanawha river easing past on the other, when suddenly a tow truck drove by pulling a Frontier Communications repair truck. "Ha!" I thought, "Now we're in the same boat!"

Those who have been closely following my attempts to persuade Frontier to restore telephone service to my home will be pleased to know that our phone was fixed this afternoon, just in time to allow me to phone home to tell my husband that I was stranded near Mineral Wells, West Virginia. I wasn't planning to be in West Virginia today, but I had to put out a fire.

It was just a little fire sparking from the heating element in our oven while my husband was baking bread to take to the Farmers Market in Cambridge tomorrow. (Have I lost you yet? It gets complicated.) He called all over creation to find a replacement part and located one in South Parkersburg, which is not the easiest place to get to from our house. Or from anywhere, for that matter. If you ever need to get there, I recommend teleporting.

I was pretty exhausted and I really wanted to stay in all evening, but my husband had to shuttle bread pans over to the tiny oven in the apartment above the garage so I left the house at 4 p.m. to try to get to the appliance store before it closed at 5. Even though I don't have a teleporter, I made it with two minutes to spare. (Again, just-in-time service!)

But by then, traffic was outrageous and I had trouble turning left, so I made a right turn and hoped to find a better way, which is how I ended up in Mineral Wells, a great place to go if you have time to stop at the Coldwater Creek outlet store but not when the bread dough is rising and the oven is awaiting its element. So I got on the interstate and drove north.

"At this pace, I'll be home by 6," I told myself just before the engine starting losing power in the middle of a construction zone with nowhere to pull off. My Volvo limped to the nearest exit. As I pulled into the Marathon station, the engine began to scream.

I checked the oil: fine. I checked the belts: all present and accounted for. Having run through my entire repertoire of car-diagnosis options, I put a few quarters in the pay phone and phoned home. And it worked! First time I've been able to call my own number all week, but I had only three dollars in cash on me so I had to keep the long-distance calls short and sweet.

A very helpful FedEx employee came over and looked at my engine, but he couldn't find anything obvious wrong either--but he did let me use his cell phone to call AAA for a tow truck. I had a hard time making the AAA person understand me with all the trucks roaring by, but in less time that it would take to translate the Volvo owner's manual into Esperanto, she promised to send a tow truck "soon."

So I thanked the helpful FedEx guy and gave him a hand-written coupon good for free bread from our booth at the Farmers' Market, and then I settled in to wait. In the heat. With the interstate on one side and the river on the other and nothing to do but stare into space.

Which is what I was doing when the Frontier truck went tootling by behind a tow truck. If I have to be stuck in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do but wait to see what AAA means by "soon," it's comforting to know I'm not the only one.

I wonder whether Frontier's tow truck arrived just in time? Mine did. The car is in the shop, the bread is in the oven with the new element, and I am at home. Just in time.