On June 4, 2022, my dear friend Shelby married the love of her life, Matt. A quick little backstory before we dive into the weekend’s adventures (and yes, you guessed it, I’m really talking misadventures here): Shelby and I met four years ago, awkwardly stumbling upon one another in the airport bathroom at Charles de Gaulle airport — only to realize within a matter of minutes that we were both in France for the same summer study abroad program. That was the beginning of what’s since turned into a wonderful friendship over the years.
Shelby’s from the Atlanta area, and the wedding was at this absolutely adorable little country farm in Newborn, Georgia. I won’t say too much about the wedding, because the heart of the story really lies in what happened the day after, but there are a few noteworthy things worth mentioning.
A Wedding
First and foremost, I’d be remiss not to relay that the ceremony was lovely and was followed by a roaring good time of a reception! There was one slight, teeny-tiny little snafu at the very end of the night. The bride and groom were sent off in a “tunnel” of sparklers (those crackling fireworks-like sticks you light during the summer)…and after the grand promenade, the photographer brought them back for a few special “sparkler-lit” shots. A few people were recruited to arrange a sparkler backdrop behind the lovely couple as the photographer fired away.
Then, suddenly, word starts spreading among the wedding guests, “Her dress is on fire!”. Wait, what?! I mean, yes, the bride was figuratively a smokeshow (and had been all day), but she was literally on fire??!!
Like a scene from a movie, the ember of a sparkler had gotten a little too close, singing a hole straight through her wedding dress to the skin beneath. Ouch! Both physically and emotionally.
If only that had been the most eventful moment of the wedding weekend…but alas, Cierra was in attendance, and as such, a greater misadventure was destined.
A Birthday
The day after the wedding, Shelby swung by my hotel to drive me back to her house. The venue was a little over an hour from their house, and by about 9:00 a.m., we were on our way back! Meanwhile, Matt was driving back with his mom. (If you haven’t already figured it out, the newlyweds were not immediately embarking on a honeymoon).
About 20 minutes into the drive, Matt called Shelby — he was pulled over in a gas station parking lot because an engine light had appeared on the dash. Luckily, he was just an exit behind us. So, we turned around, found the gas station, and pulled in next to the Prius.
Now, at this point, the situation was already playing out to be a narrowly avoided catastrophe, at least from Matt’s perspective: When the light first popped up, he had pulled over into the breakdown lane on the highway. Yep, it was one of the more serious ones, meaning he couldn’t just drive home (which was a good hour aways still) and deal with it later. Time to call for help…except his phone was at <5% and draining fast…and he didn’t have a charging cable with him.
Ah, but luckily he was with his mom….except his mom’s phone would be of no use, either. Matt’s from France (although, he and Shelby met at school in Georgia), so her phone didn’t work in the US.
So, he acted fast and made a smart decision: he continued on to the nearest exit, found a gas station, bought a charging cable, powered up, and called Shelby.
And that’s how the four of us ended up in the gas station parking lot.
We did our best to troubleshoot the issue (I called my mom, we googled, we youtubed, etc.), but the consensus was pretty clear: continuing to drive it with this light on risked causing a lot more harm to the engine.
Ideally, we could find an auto repair shop nearby (and there were lots!)…but it was Sunday, so nothing was open. Alas, in that case, we’d need a tow — and we’d need to tow it all the way to their town of Milledgeville, about 40 miles away. Shelby called their car insurance and learned it would still cost them somewhere between $100-$200. I’m an AAA member (well, I’m a driver listed on my parents’ Triple A plan), and this was exactly what Triple A is for, right?! I just had to make sure that it would work even if I wasn’t driving (although, really, how would they have known).
Great news! As long as I was there when the tow truck arrived with a valid ID and my card, they’d cover up to 100 miles for free. This was the way to go! Consider it my wedding gift!
I put in a roadside assistance request….ETA 12:38. Ok, that wasn’t too bad. Just about an hour. In the meantime, we’d just chill and get comfy at the gas station. There was a nice little wooden picnic table and bench in the grass, right next a tree. Really classed up the occasion, y’know? So picturesque. As for food, well, we had all the leftovers from the wedding in the car, so we pulled them out and lined the curb with a makeshift lunch buffet.
I mean, c’mon, talk about a romantic picnic?! Such a great way to celebrate not only their wedding, a makeshift honeymoon if you will, but also Shelby’s birthday. That’s right! It was her birthday — had Matt secretly staged the breakdown just to throw her a dreamy, romantic gas station honeymoon birthday picnic??
It may come as a great surprise, but no, he hadn’t. This was entirely an instance of luck.
(Mind you: four years ago, Shelby and I had been celebrating her birthday with a picnic in front of the Eiffel Tower…but this was basically the next best thing, right?)
So there we were, sitting curbside at a gas station, munching on lukewarm green beans, salad, and slightly warmed crêpes in the hot Georgia sun. I forget exactly how we spent most of that hour — a bit of chatting, eating, relaxing on the bench, strolling around, watching cars drive in and out, people watching the gas station shoppers, just typical things given the situation, I guess.
A few biker gangs pulled in, and at one point, a van pulled up that read Inmate Transfer Van.
“That’s it,” I thought to myself, “This is how I go out. A prison transfer gone wrong. It’s all gonna end in this crummy gas station parking lot somewhere in Georgia, literally the middle of Southern nowhere.”
I could see the headlines in my mind…
Prison inmates escape at country gas station, Tow Truck Awaitees Caught in the Crossfire.
They waited for a tow truck. A truck full of convicts arrived.
And then when the TWO drivers got out of the car and walked into the gas station, my heart started to race…until my rational brain kicked in — the fact that they both left the vehicle together probably meant they weren’t actively transporting inmates.
….right?
Almost just as quickly as it had arrived, the van drove off. Phew. No crazy action movie scene today.
And then it was back to less eventful waiting. Our ETA got closer and closer until pretty soon, we were all just staring at the highway offramp, trying to manifest a tow truck into appearance simply by looking hard enough.
12:30…12:35…12:38! Oh good, must just be around the corner! 12:45…1:00..1:15.
What the heck was going on. The ETA was still reading the same thing, aka our tow truck should have arrived! Where the heck was it??!
I dialed up Triple A in search of answers, but of course, I had to wait about 25 minutes just to get in contact with someone…who then informed me that she didn’t know what had happened and would reach out to the provider.
Hold, please.
We continued to pass the time while we waited. At this point, the sun had moved a bit, so we picked up the picnic table and shifted it into the shade. Eventually, we did what always comes in clutch during times like this…we started playing cards! (Sidenote, if you don’t already carry a deck of cards with you pretty much everywhere, this is just more evidence that you 100% should). We even had some nice soft jazz music to really set the mood, courtesy of the Triple A hold line!
Of course, we couldn’t help but naturally scan the road from time to time for a tow truck. Any semi or other big truck, and I’d feel my heart pick up in momentary excitement, “Could this finally be it!”
And then, finally, an actual tow truck!!
Oh my god, sure enough, there was a tow truck pulling off the highway. Oh, finally! It was pulling off the exit ramp…go go go…now turn right…wait, no, what’s it doing? Where’s it going? Back onto the highway again…what, nooooooo!!!! Why???!!
That one stung.
…Back to endlessly waiting….
We saw a pick-up drive by on the road….flying a large flag (I can’t remember if it was the US or Confederate flag), but most notable of all, a man was lounging in the bed of the truck, lying in that “paint-me-like-one-of-your-French-girls” pose. And he just hurtled by at about 50 mph like that. So bizarre. But, I suppose, very Southern.
…Back to endlessly waiting again…
Then! After a solid hour of being on hold, click!
The line dropped dead.
Fan-freaking-tastic. Yep, that’s definitely the f-word that escaped my lips. A few deep breaths later, and I dialed up again. At this point, I practically had the number (and those stupid auto-prompts) memorized.
Back on hold!
…and so the waiting continued…
By now, we’d already moved the picnic table a few times. In fact, we’d made it about halfway around the tree! Never thought I’d be so glad a picnic table wasn’t drilled into the ground, and yet, this tiny little thing was practically making my entire day!
Obviously, this is not how any of us envisioned spending the day. Matt, in particular, had planned on showing his family around town, especially since they had flown in from France for the week. Given that he clearly wouldn’t be able to show them the sights (because they were all already back at Shelby & Matt’s house), he asked one of his friends to take his place as tour guide. Perfect solution….except for the fact that almost none of his 14 visiting family members spoke much English…and his friend didn’t know any French. Needless to say, while we were stuck (and I do mean, quite literally stuck) in our own misadventure, they were surely experiencing their own down in Milledgeville.
Hello, thank you for calling Triple A.
OMG! A Human!! Finally, it was time to get some answers. I very calmly and clearly began explaining our situation — in other words, I very politely asked, “what the f*** is going on here?!”
She began explaining how it works. When you put in a roadside request, the dispatch department within Triple A reaches out to an in-network provider. It’s then up to the provider to accept or reject the job…The dispatch department, however, moves on. Unfortunately (and throughout our call, this seemed to be a favoriteeee word of hers), Triple A has no way of knowing if they reject the call until the member calls back to say they haven’t received their tow yet.
You’d have to check with Shelby, Matt, and his mom, but I’m pretty sure actually steam erupted from my ears at this point.
You mean to tell me there’s NO TOW TRUCK on the way!!!
Don’t worry — I only *mentally* screamed those words, safely unleashing my rage within the abyss of my own inner world. The words I spoke into the physical world through the phone were much less volatile. Thanks to my stint working as a legal assistant, I was well practiced in the art of savagely, yet ever-so-calmly, clarifying the facts in a way that makes in abundantly clear to anyone with a semblance of intelligence (although, sometimes that means the effect is entirely lost on the receiver in instances such as these) how absolutely furious I am. (Such calls frequently provided free entertainment for my two other office coworkers).
I knew it wasn’t this poor lady’s fault, but boy, was I fuming on the inside — and rightfully so!
Deep breaths, Cierra. It’s not her fault. She’s probably just as frustrated. Deep breaths.
Thankfully, I had another surprisingly useful skill from my law firm days — I knew exactly how to direct the conversation to pinpoint actionable next steps, i.e. how do we get a tow asap?
Essentially, here’s how it worked: they’d reach out to every in-network provider in the area, but then if they weren’t available, they’d have to go to providers out of the area, which could take hours or longer. Plus, Covid had been causing extremely long delays all across the board. So, she recommended obtaining a third-party tow on our own and then filing a reimbursement claim.
Fine. Settled. That’s what we would do.
I hung up the phone and gave the spark note summary of my conversation to my crew. The mood in the air was a combination of frustration, defeat, and exhaustion, but at least now there was a little bit of hope thrown into the mix. We’d find a tow, no matter how expensive, and hopefully get the heck out of here with some daylight to spare!
We called a nearby tow service, and he said he could be there in 40 minutes. Sweet heavens, this seemed almost too good to be true!
In fact, was it actually true? I wasn’t allowing myself to fully believe it, at least not until the tow truck was physically in front of us (This was, I think, an understandable act of self-protection, given that each time we’d get our hopes up, they’d be completely and utterly obliterated).
By now, the picnic table had made it a good 75-80% away around the tree. We were almost back where we started, that’s how long we’d been out here chasing the shade..and the elusive tow truck.
But then, at long last, our savior came rolling down the highway. We watched intently as the vehicle turned onto the street, and then cruised into the parking lot.
It had taken about four hours, but a tow truck had arrived.
Hallelujah!
A Tow Truck
Finally, we were getting out of here! There was, of course, one more problem. The tow truck only had room to take one of us back, and Shelby’s car was too full of wedding stuff for all four of us to fit. So, one of us — and only one of us — would have to drive back alone with the tow truck driver.
As much as I really didn’t want to ride back in the truck, I took one for the team. After all, Matt’s mom probably wanted to spend time with both of them, and at the very least, I figured, it’d be more content for the blog (and while this makes for great literary foreshadowing as I relay my tale, I think this thought may have acted as a real-life instance of unintended manifestation).
Once the driver had loaded to the Prius onto the back of the tow truck, he confirmed the address of the repair shop and invited me to hop in.
The tow truck was huge, quite the climb up and in. It was set up like a smaller pick-up truck, with three seats in the front. We pulled forward a bit, and I went to go buckle my seatbelt…only I couldn’t find the actual clip for buckling in. I dug around between the seats and kept digging, but I couldn’t find it!
Luckily, he had stopped to make sure I was all buckled (or rather, because I was struggling so hard), but he wasn’t able to help me find it. Instead, he offered a different solution.
“Here, just use mine,” he said, grabbing hold of his buckle clip and angling it towards me.
Oh, okay then. Guess he won’t be wearing a seatbelt. Good.
Not seeing what other choice I had (because I was NOT going to be riding without one), I stretched my seat belt allllllllllll the way across my body and the middle seat and clicked it in. Again, I want to reiterate that this truck was huge. So this was quite a significant length to stretch a seatbelt.
Unsurprisingly, it immediately locked, giving me a whopping two inches of “wiggle room” to move back and forth.
Looks like I’m stuck like this. Perfect.
But finally, we were off. The truck itself was pretty run down. The air conditioner definitely wasn’t working because he had the windows wide open. They were large windows, and boy was it loud! He asked me a few questions, and I literally had to scream my answers back to him. Thankfully, he didn’t try to keep the conversation going after that.
I had a sort of outside-looking-in moment, and I couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of the scene. There I was, hurtling down a Georgia country road at 50 mph in a beat-up tow truck, windows wide open, feeling very country bumpkin redneck… wearing a nice skirt, dressy tank, and sandals. Clearly my outfit hadn’t gotten the memo about the day’s dress code.
I noticed a huge crack in the windshield, which was a bit concerning, but I was even more worried about the side mirrors, which were actually visibly rattling. This truck was in rough shape. To add to the visual appeal, there was an extremely loud and obnoxious squealing sound, which I suspect was from the tow hitch hook-up. It was absolutely ear-splitting and driving me bonkers.
This eye-twitch-inducing noise, combined with being in the blazing hot sun, was just too much. I had to do something.
My airpods!
I was almost positive my airpods were in my purse with me, only how to get them? I couldn’t exactly bend down, or even reach down and grab my purse, trapped as I was by my locked, super-extended seatbelt.
Time to get resourceful. I used my foot to scoop the strap of my purse and shimmed it up into my lap.
Success!
I popped in my earbuds and didn’t even play anything. Just used them to dampen the noise a bit — oh sweet sweet noise cancellation technology, bless you.
The ride became a smidge more bearable after that, but it was still a long 40 minutes to the auto shop. It was, uhhhh, quite the experience to say the least, and pretty much the last thing I would have predicted on a wedding weekend trip.
Somehow though, we managed to arrive at the shop in one piece. Anxious to escape my confinement, I reached over and released myself, and now free to move again, climbed out of the truck.
Back on solid ground, I was a little disoriented. My ears were slightly ringing from the extended exposure to all the noise, and I was very overheated. I’m happy to report that despite my rough ride, my car-riding counterparts seemed to be in much better shape.
Finally, the last leg of our escapade was coming to a close. I paid the tow truck driver, the final act in this crazy plot.
It was hard to believe, but at long last, our ordeal was over. It was time to go home and celebrate properly with birthday ice cream sundaes (although could that really beat our curbside leftover feast?? Hard to say.)!
Oh my!
We did our best to make light of the situation even as it was happening, but of course now, after the fact, it makes for a pretty great story.
Without a doubt, we’ll be joking about this one for years to come….Remember x years ago, when we spent your birthday waiting for a tow truck in a gas station? And right after your wedding too! Good times haha.
So, to all my friends and family who will be getting married in the years to come, consider this your warning. Misadventures follow me…but so do the unforgettable stories.
Epilogue
Two weeks later I filed my claim, ready to fight tooth and nail for every last penny, if necessary.
Four weeks later, I received a check from Triple A for $300, a full reimbursement issued without any hassle…which, after everything, was really the very least they could do.
chronicles of misadventure 