After the alligator scare, we sat in the car waiting. For what? I’m not sure. It was obvious we were way past being in a pickle, but no one was offering any suggestions.
Gram was mad at Mimi.
Mimi was blaming herself.
And Brandon?
Who knows?
I mean, I was thankful he wasn’t holding up his phone anymore, but he wasn’t coming up with any ideas about what we should do either. He sat with his chin in his hand, his elbow resting on the open window, staring out at the horizon like the Everglade Emergency Agency would gallop up at any moment. So much for him actually saving the day.
I finally asked Brandon if he thought we could push the Mustang out of the ditch if Gram pressed the gas pedal while we pushed.
But before he could even answer, Gram said, “Under no circumstances, Samantha, are the two of you getting out of this car. We just saw an alligator, for goodness’ sakes!”
I told her we might have to start hunting alligators and eating them if we didn’t do something.
I kind of surprised myself by the amount of sarcasm I used to say this, because I’d never been sarcastic with Gram before, but sitting in the car doing nothing was getting us nowhere.
Forget about sitting around hoping for the best while preparing for the worst. We were smack dab in the middle of the “worst,” and getting out of it was apparently going to take more than holding up a cell phone with no service or staying in the safety of Gram’s Mustang waiting to be rescued.
Once I convinced Gram it was our only option, I assured her that Brandon and I would check that the coast was clear before getting out of the car. Then we’d run down in the ditch and give the car a push. As soon as the car was out of the mud, Brandon and I would skedaddle back up on to the road, jump in the car, and we’d be on our way.
“Even if we thought that was safe,” Mimi said. “Brandy’s not supposed to use his wrist.”
“Yeah,” Brandon said, quickly agreeing with Mimi. “I gotta let this thing heal all the way or I’ll never get back to baseball.”
All I could think was, are you kidding me?
Did anyone else besides me care at all about getting out of this ditch before Brandon and I were as old as Gram and Mimi?
I knew from my volunteer training that I should try to be patient, enthusiastic, and positive, but I’d like to know how I was supposed to do that with this car full of naysayers.
I told Mimi that Brandon could just push with one hand, because unless someone else had a better idea, I didn’t see how we had any choice but to give it a try.
So, that’s how Brandon and I ended up standing in the ditch, me with two hands on the back of the Mustang and Brandon with one.
“Everybody on three!” I yelled as Gram put the car in drive.
Brandon and I took one last look around to be sure there weren’t any alligators or any worse swamp creatures of God roaming around ready to swallow us whole.
Then we put our heads down and counted together.
“ONE!
TWO!
THREE!”
But the only thing that moved, besides the tires spinning, was the sludgy, swampy mud that splattered and splashed up at Brandon and me.
“STOP!” We both yelled, even louder than Mimi had yelled to save that turtle’s life.
But as you can tell from the mud smeared on this paper, we didn’t yell quickly enough.
Mimi wailed from inside the car.
Gram yelled, “Gosh darn it!” and hit the steering wheel with her fist.
And Brandon and I turned toward each other, froze for a couple seconds, and then laughed
So
Hard!
Brandon looked like a creepy creature from an amateur monster movie, which meant I must’ve looked like one too.
If it was possible to literally laugh your head off, mine and Brandon’s heads would’ve been rolling around in the ditch.
We both doubled over until we could hardly breathe.
Once Gram and Mimi got a good look at us, they laughed as hard as we did.
And our laughter felt
so
GOOD!
Still laughing, Brandon and I got back into the car.
We pulled shirts out of the garbage bag of rummage clothes and wiped off the wet mud from our arms, legs, and faces, but, even so, there were still streaks/smudges/smears of swamp mud remaining on Brandon and me. As we sat in the stillness and silence of our subsided laughter, the truth sank in: Gram’s car wasn’t going anywhere without a tow truck, which meant we had one option…walk for help.
No one liked the idea, especially Gram, who was almost in tears at the thought of leaving her beloved Mustang behind in the ditch, but we all agreed there was nothing else we could do.
But even though there was eventually agreement about walking, there wasn’t any agreement about what to do with our stuff.
Since our suitcases had wheels on them, Gram wanted to take them with us, which wouldn’t have been a problem, except for the fact that Mimi wanted to know how we were going to carry the Bibles.
To which Gram said, “The BIBLES?! You’ve got to be kidding!”
To which Mimi said, “I most certainly am not kidding!”
And then she added, “If you think I’m just going to leave God’s Word lying in a ditch, then you must not know me very well, Madge!”
“Well, I never!” Gram said.
Then Gram opened the car door, got out, slammed it shut, and tromped up the side of the ditch to the road, where she paced back and forth. Her anger and frustration must’ve superseded her earlier fear of alligators and all other swamp creatures.
Brandon looked at me as if to say, “You better do something”.
So, I’ve got to cut this letter short.
As soon as I can, I’ll let you know what happens next.
I’m dying to know too.
Love,
Me
Dear Me,
I’m writing this letter from the steps of Glory Bound Baptist Church.
How ironic is that?
You’ll think it’s even more ironic when I tell you that we showed up in front of this church with four suitcases full of Bibles, which may have been the holiest choice we could’ve made, but now that we’re here, we’re realizing it wasn’t the wisest thing we could’ve done.
After an argument between Gram and Mimi that was as heated as the one we’d seen between the checkout girl and the Coupon Queen back at the Friendly Frugal, the four of us were more stuck than Gram’s Mustang, because neither Gram nor Mimi would budge. Finally, in an effort to obtain a shred of peace, I suggested that we take our clothes out of our suitcases, dump them in the trunk, and then fill our suitcases with Mimi’s Bibles. I assured Gram that our clothes would be safe until we found help and were able to get her car back.
So, that’s how we found ourselves walking up the road, each dragging behind us a suitcase full of Bibles.
Thankfully Gram and Mimi both figured out how to attach their ginormous purses to rest on top of their suitcases. If they had tried to carry those things over their shoulders, there was no way they both wouldn’t need shoulder surgery and arm slings by the time we got wherever it was we were going.
And speaking of where we were going, we had no idea.
After the battle of the Bibles, there was a slight kerfuffle about what direction we should walk. But by this time, no one had much fight left in them, and the reality was that none of us even had an educated guess. Without GPS and with Harold’s directions virtually unreadable after Brandon peeled them up from the wet ground, we all decided our best bet was to head back in the direction we had come from.
The Bible-laden suitcases were pretty heavy; so, even though I didn’t really want to, I told Gram and Mimi that they should let B
randon and me pull their suitcases for them.
Right away, Gram said, “You’ll do no such thing! The two of us got the four of us into this mess and dragging our own burdensome bags down the road is the least we can do.”
I was surprised that Gram was taking any responsibility for what happened when the truth was Mimi’s turtle rescue was really the cause of our quandary.
But I wasn’t surprised when Mimi said, “Besides, Brandy really shouldn’t pull a suitcase with his bad hand.”
Oh, please!
Brandon just shrugged at me as if to say, “I wish there were something I could do.”
So, we had a lot of baggage in more ways than one, but worse than all that was the fact that since we didn’t know where we were going, we had no idea how long it would take to get there.
As we walked, Gram grumbled a lot about leaving her new car behind and also about leaving our clothes and taking the Bibles, but we kept assuring her that as soon as we got somewhere where our phones worked, we’d call a tow truck and get Gram’s car back along with all our stuff. Eventually she either decided to believe us, or she got tired of talking.
Brandon and I still looked pretty swamp-creatureish because the dried-up leftover swamp mud clung to our clothes and ran in muddy rivers down our bare arms and legs as we sweated in the hot Florida humidity. Thankfully it was a cloudy day, so at least we only had the ninety-plus temperature to deal with, minus the Sunshine State’s sunshine.
Even so, Gram kept pointing out that all of us were sweating like pigs, which was an observation I did not find all that helpful, but I kept reminding myself that Gram’s spirits must’ve been exceptionally low. It was true all of us were facing these terrible circumstances, but for Gram, it was worse. Not only had Gram been forced to walk away from her Mustang, but because of the whole turtle/spin-out/hike up the road to who-knows-where, there was now probably no way we’d be able to make it to Gram’s second karaoke contest. That meant there was only one more contest left in which Gram could qualify for the Borlandsville County Fair.
I’m not so sure qualifying was all that important, but if, heaven forbid (as Mimi would say), some other catastrophe were to befall us, causing us to miss the last qualifying karaoke contest, Gram wouldn’t get to sing at all. I tried to “hope for the best” and not think about how tragic that would be.
After we had walked for at least two hours and Mimi said, “Oh, Lord have mercy!” I thought she might be having a heart attack or something.
I’d learned first aid and CPR from my volunteer training, but I wasn’t all that confident in my skills. Besides, most of our training was about Band-Aids and bruises. We hadn’t really covered how to give first aid to a seventy-something senior citizen on a two-hour hike through the Florida swamps who was possibly having a heart attack.
Thankfully Mimi was fine. Her “Lord have mercy!” exclamation had come because she had spotted a church steeple in the distance. Once she pointed it out, we all saw it, and even I felt like saying, “Lord have mercy!”
But even though we all saw it, there was so much steam coming off the hot blacktop, I worried the church might only be a mirage. I crossed my fingers while Mimi hummed the chorus of “We’re Marching to Zion,” and we walked on.
But the church was in fact there, which was more than strange since there was literally nothing else around—no town, no houses, no anything—anywhere in sight. Once we walked up the steps, we saw a sign duct taped to the door that said, “Gone to Gospel Fest. Back next week. God Bless!”
“Oh, great!” Gram said with so much disgust she almost spit when she said it.
“Oh, my!” Mimi said sounding discouraged.
I felt like we had marched all the way to Zion only to find that God had left for Gospel Fest but hadn’t waited for us.
As we sat on the steps of the church in the shade, resting from our impromptu Everglades hike, trying to think of what to do next, Gram suggested, “Let’s look for an open window or something.”
“Are you proposing we break into the House of the Lord?” Mimi asked sounding aghast.
And Brandon looked at me like he was thinking “I hope you know what to do if these two start fighting again.”
Saying that Gram was super unhappy about dragging those Bibles down the road with us would’ve been putting it mildly. But even so, while we walked, even though we were all tired, hungry, and sweaty, it felt like Gram might be trying to forgive Mimi for saving that turtle’s life at the risk of our own. But now that we’re on the steps of Glory Bound Baptist and no one was here to help us, I’m waiting for steam to start coming out of Gram’s ears the way the humidity is rising up from the blacktop, especially since Mimi is acting as if letting ourselves in through an open window of this church would be the crime of the century just because this is “the House of the Lord,” as she’s calling it.
I checked my phone again to see if there might be a cellular service miracle, seems like the steps of a church would be a good place for divine intervention, but there isn’t even a hint of a bar on my screen.
Love,
Me
Dear Me,
I’m sitting on the floor of the women’s restroom in Glory Bound Baptist Church. Why?
I can answer that question in one word:
SNORING!
Gram sounds like a vacuum cleaner, and Mildred sounds like a lawn mower, and I know that if Mom were here, she’d tell me I’m just being a dramatic exaggerator, but you know better than anyone that I’m telling the honest-to-goodness truth. I mean, I’m sleeping in a church. Do you really think I’d lie about this?
With the symphony of snoring that’s going on in the Sunday-school room where Gram and Mimi are, I have no idea how Brandon, in the room right next to it, can possibly be asleep, but I know that he is because I peeked in there before coming into the bathroom.
Not only did I find out that he’s sound asleep, I found out something else too. Something that’s a little bit scary.
Are you ready for this?
Brandon is actually cuter asleep than he is when he’s awake.
How is that even possible?!
It’s one thing to admit that he’s teen-magazine worthy, but now, I’ve got to live with the fact that even when he’s sleeping he’s…he’s…I’d never say this word out loud, especially to describe a boy, but…adorable.
He’s adorable!
This trip is difficult enough without having to ride next to adorable in the back seat.
Love,
Me
Dear Me,
When I first woke up this morning, I had no idea where I was. But when I opened my eyes and saw a tattered maroon hymnal directly in front of me, it all came back to me in an instant. I was in the sanctuary of Glory Bound Baptist Church.
You already know I couldn’t sleep on the floor in the Sunday school room because of the snoring.
And I wasn’t on the floor in the women’s restroom where I wrote my last letter because it’s kind of hard to sleep on a cold, tiled floor.
Instead, I was waking up on a hard, wooden church pew, because it had been the only place I could find where I could get some rest.
You might think that sleeping in a sanctuary would give a person peaceful, heavenly slumber, but I’m living proof that’s not the case.
I have a terrible crick in my neck, and I feel as tired as if I’d stayed up all night long.
I never gave you the details of how we ended up getting inside Glory Bound Baptist, so I better fill you in to make sure you stay up to date on the day-to-day developments of this trip.
We finally found an unlocked window when we walked around the side of the church, and even though Mimi didn’t want us to “let ourselves in,” I climbed through the window and unlocked the side door of the church.
Mr. Baseball Brando said he would do it, but that w
as only after Mimi told him, under no circumstances, because of his wrist, was he allowed to climb inside that window. I have a hunch that both he and Mimi were just using his injury so that Gram and I would be more blameworthy than they were for “defiling the House of the Lord” with our “breaking and entering.” This didn’t make me feel all that churchy and charitable toward them, especially when the two of them were getting the benefits of the risks Gram and I were willing to take even though they were playing it safe.
When we got inside, the hallway in the church smelled musty, and Gram thought it felt stuffy. She wanted to adjust the thermostat to make the temperature cooler because it was currently set to vacation mode. But Mimi insisted that it was bad enough that we had broken into a place of worship, and we certainly weren’t going to “squander the resources of the congregation” by turning the air-conditioning colder.
I wondered why Gram didn’t argue or get mad at Mimi until I saw her adjust the thermostat later when Mimi wasn’t looking, and thankfully the temperature changed so gradually that Mimi didn’t notice, except to say a few hours later, “See, Madge, it’s not even that warm in here once you get used to it.”
Gram knew I had seen what she’d done, so she winked at me, and I smiled at her. I guess the two of us were the rebel rule-breakers, willing to be the culprits in a breaking-and-entering charge as well as being responsible for the theft of all that cool, air-conditioned air.
Mimi and Brandon were the scaredy-cats, afraid to take the chances necessary to survive the mess we were in.
But chances weren’t the only thing we had to take. Because our clothes were still caked with mud, and because our clean clothes were back in the trunk of Gram’s car, Brandon and I had to choose something to wear out of the church’s donation bin.
Brandon ended up with a pair of pink plaid Bermuda shorts that were way too long for him and a bright yellow women’s shirt with daisies on it. It was the only thing even close to his size. (Even Brandon’s coolness was beginning to tarnish a bit, which says something about our plight at this point.)
When I Hit the Road Page 7
