Cuirim Craft Fair

If you live in the area, I will be selling my wares at the Cuirim Craft Fair on April 21. For more information go to www.cuirimcraftfair.com

‘Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore”‘

This past weekend I journeyed to Virginia Beach for a family event, a bridal shower to be exact. My mother in law lives right near a cemetery and Sunday after church I wandered over there to take some pictures while I waited for her to come home. Some of Nathan’s family is buried there and I wanted to find them. I had a pretty good idea where they would be but I wasn’t able to find everyone so this morning after packing the truck I returned. Kathy had given me the general area where these graves where but it still took me a while to find them. I wandered around for an hour or so, stopping by a pond to see if I could capture any pictures of the noisy geese and ducks I kept hearing. I’m still getting accustomed to all of the settings on the new camera. I find these picture taking adventures to be quite a stress reliever and was feeling rather contented when I headed back to the truck. Since it wasstill pretty early in the day, I thought I might stop at the antique stores I see along route 460 on the way back to Lynchburg.

I jump in the truck, turn the key in the ignition but nothing happens, nothing at all.

This cannot be happening, I think to myself. I don’t have the cell phone, Nathan kept it for delivering pizza; I’m not sure how much cash I have, I know I locked the house the when I left Kathy’s, Kathy won’t be able to leave work to help me, I don’t even have her phone number memorized because it’s programmed into the cell phone, Rhandy, my mechanic brother-in-law, is out of town for his job, WHAT AM I GOING TO DO?

I look up and notice a white pick up. It appeared to be a work truck driving into the cemetery. Cemetery workers, I think to myself, perhaps they can help. I get out of the truck and start walking over to the white pick up. It was far enough away that it took me a couple of minutes to get over to them. When I got about 5 feet from them, I noticed one of them look at me in the mirror but then they started the truck and pulled away. I cried and uttered some obscenities. Obviously they were not cemetery workers and perhaps God was protecting me, it was 2 men after all, but in between the obscenities, I ask God to duly reward them for not helping me.

What am I going to do? I know the cemetery office is on the other side, but will anyone be there? I know I’ve seen a lot of Police driving around (it is Portsmouth, after all), but I don’t see any now. I see an old lady in an early 90’s Buick, there’s no way she’s going to have jumper cables or anything and really, I don’t want to bother her, she is probably visiting someone. I return to the truck, not knowing how much a pay phone costs anymore I grab all of my change, surely 82 cents will be enough (yes, I grabbed the pennies too!) and start walking towards the cemetery office.

To give you an idea of how far away the cemetery office is from where I was, Nathan told me I changed zip codes. CHANGED ZIP CODES! When I finally get there, I walk into the office where I am greeted by the smell of cigarette smoke and a very confused lady sitting behind a lap top. I explain what’s happened and ask to use the phone and if she has a phone book as well so I can look up Kathy’s work number. She says she has jumper cables, she just had trouble with her battery last week, and she’d be happy to help me, she just needs to put her note on the door. She pulls a piece of cardboard out of a file with “Out of Office, Be Back Soon” scribbled in permanent marker on it and we head out the door. She was very kind and in between the conversation about the inevitability of vehicle mishaps, I ask God to duly reward her for helping me.

My last name is McGlothlin and in situations such as this, that means if it can go wrong, it will go wrong. This going of the wrong far surpasses any Murphy Law; it will be the worst, most expensive, most time consuming thing to possibly go wrong. So when we arrive at the truck and she gets out her jumper cables, I just know that this isn’t going to do it. How could it? That would be too easy. We hook up the cables and I jump into the truck. I take a deep breath, turn the key and then I hear it, the glorious rumble that is “the 90” turning over. The heavens part and angels appear.

I know that vehicles need to be driven for a while when they’ve been jumped but I decide to drive straight to Lynchburg. Three hours, no stopping; no antique stores, no gassing up, and no bathroom breaks. It was one thing to be stuck a short way from my family but I was not going to risk being stuck in the middle of no where. I had a half tank of gas and prayed that it would be enough.

I had parked the truck in sun so when I got in it was warm. I opened all the windows to let it air out. I stopped at the first drive through I passed to pick up something to eat. Next stop the highway, next stop home. Before I get on the highway, I start to roll up the windows. It was getting a little cool. My window goes up, passenger side goes up, passenger side rear goes up, driver side rear doesn’t go up. Sometimes I don’t hold the button down well enough so I try again. Sure enough, it’s not working.

I get little way down the road, out near Suffolk to be exact. I’ve finished my lunch. I’m half way through my drink (no stopping, remember? I’ve got to pace myself!). I’m switching out cd’s when I notice flashing lights ahead. Traffic was merging down to one lane as the entire two lanes on the left were closed. When I get closer I see that a mini van had flipped off the side of the road. It appeared to have rolled several times and hit a telephone pole.

Was this why the truck hadn’t started, to keep me from being involved in this accident? Earlier at the cemetery, I had noticed a crow sitting on a headstone. I noticed it because it just kept cawing. I remember thinking to myself that it was sort of ominous and that I hoped I would make it home safely. I think I even uttered a little prayer but then chided myself for succumbing to superstition. Who can say though? I just know I got chills when I saw that accident. It was certainly creepy. I’m glad I’m home safe. Oh, and the window ended up going up somewhere around Waverly so I didn’t have to leave the heat on for that long. Also, I did make it with out stopping, although, I leave you with a picture of where the gas gauge was when I rolled up in front of my home.