Why We Didn't Get To Eat Japanese (and other stories)

Wow – we have had quite the adventure over the past few days. It’s fall break around here, which is apparently an invitation to chaos in our family. Who knew.

It all started with a trip home to North Carolina to see Shane’s parents. We were so excited to get away and to see family and friends that it didn’t even phase us when we started to notice a strange noise coming from the van. We pulled over on an exit ramp and discovered a flat tire. No problem – we’d just change it and be on our way. After all, there was still plenty of time to make it to our favorite Japanese restaurant for dinner, so what was the rush?

Well, someone forgot to tell the spare tire about Nagano’s amazing shrimp sauce and carrots. We tried to fix things on our own, but the wench mechanism holding the tire to the bottom of the car was broken. Still, no problem. AAA was just a call away, they’d come and save us in time!

An hour later we had been through all the alphabet flash cards with the boys and were making up new forms of “I Spy” to pass the time when “Bud” (aka Larry the Cable Guy’s not-so-distant cousin) showed up in the flatbed tow truck. Finally! He’d have the tools we needed and – though dinner would be late – hibachi steak was still on the map.

Only he couldn’t get it to budge either. There would be no “road-side assistance” – we were going to have to take it into “town” to a buddy of his who agreed to open up his shop just for us (“’cuz they ain’t nothin’ open ‘round these parts after 5 or on the weekends…”). So we agreed to load the van on the truck and climb aboard. He told us there was plenty of room – Shane and I could sit up front with him and the kids could sit “in the back” behind the seats. I was thinking jump seats. He was thinking piles of toolboxes and cables. And to think I was worried that they wouldn’t have car seats….seat belts would have been nice. Heck, seats would have been awesome.

It was after we finally got rolling that we learned “Bud’s” buddy wouldn’t be able to meet us for another hour or so. In that case, why not make another stop? It was off to a trailer park to unlock a car door. Yeah, awkward… but whatever, right? At this point, though, Nagano’s was looking doubtful. Although, if it was up to Buddy we were going to make it – he had no problem going 80 down the interstate and 30 around hairpin mountain road turns. Forget Halloween, the nightmares came early for us this year.

So we unlocked the Johnson’s car and headed “into town” to the tire shop (or, rather, we drove into the middle of nowhere to a freestanding garage). There we met “the King” (I can only assume that was his name – after all, it was tattooed in rather large script on his forearm….but not on the same arm as the Cadillac symbol, of course). The King reminded me a little of Eminem and a kid we once knew, and he turned out to be a really decent guy who knew a whole heck of a lot about tires (information which he gladly imparted to us – if the whole writing and speaking thing doesn’t work out for me, I think I’m well prepped for a career in the tire business).

The King set in on our tire and soon hit a new snag: One of the three different sizes of lug nuts on the tire was stuck. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get it off. Bud stepped in to help, but they were getting nowhere fast. Then the King seemed to remember some magic stuff in a spray can and used that to finally free up the situation.

Once the tire was off we could see that it sported a hole certainly big enough to pass a dime through piggy bank style. It took several more minutes (and a lot more instruction) to patch another old tire and fit it to the van. By the time we left, Nagano’s (which was still an hour away) was minutes from closing and Hardee’s was sounding like very viable competition.

So in the end, we endangered our kids’ lives and spent $60 to take a three hour detour into the Neverland of tow trucks and spare tires in the mountains of North Carolina. I have to admit, though, that the whole time I was feeling a sense of peace and patience that certainly surpassed understanding (which immediately meant to me that it had to be from God). Maybe He was keeping us from something. A wreck? A horrible act of nature? Food poisoning at our favorite restaurant? Who knows. Somehow it all just felt like part of the plan. So we ate a heatlamped thick burger at 9:45 instead of steak and mushrooms covered with shrimp sauce (mmmm…), so what? So we got to Shane’s parents house sometime around 11, no big deal. No one was hurt and our van was drivable (even though it has a used, patched tire on it). Things were really ok.

Too bad it was just the beginning….

I’ll be back later with more of the story.