| Sunny Side Up Sept. 1, 2004 �2004, Kathleen Gibson Kindness to strangers is not extinct Sorry old Sexy, our last set of wheels, hunkers in our driveway, waiting to be scrapped. A few weeks ago, Sexy (so named because of her randomly chosen license plate: CXE) blew something big under her hood while going up the south side of the Fort Qu'appelle valley. The engine started knocking like a woodpecker on commission. In the back seat, our guests from England panicked - they had a plane to catch in Regina, and we hadn't left much lag time. Just the day before Merry had noticed that Sexy wasn't sounding healthy. "Rick," she'd said in her charming Sussex accent. "I'd like to rent you a car tomorrow. I'm afraid this old girl won't make the trip." He declined her offer. All summer, I'd been telling the Preacher that Sexy was ailing. He'd remained convinced she would miraculously recover. But sometimes faith needs a hands on approach, so while optimism brought us partway up the south side of the Qu'appelle Valley, realism turned us around and limped us back down into the town. My watch read 7:45 a.m. When I'm right but the Preacher doesn't listen, I sometimes wish that he'd have to squirm a bit. Just enough to encourage him to listen next time, mind you. As we lurched into a car dealership, I anticipated that squirm. The place didn't open till eight, but the door opened when Rick tried it. He came back out with someone who looked like he knew cars. They raised the hood, looked in, shut it quickly, and went back inside. In about two minutes flat, a sporty little pace car pulled up alongside us. At the wheel sat the Preacher. Not squirming; grinning. He hopped out, transferred over the luggage from Sexy's trunk, tucked us all in, and there we were again; headed back up the south side of the valley. Not limping this time. Surging. We dropped off our relieved guests in time, did our errands, returned the sports car to the dealership, and hopped a tow truck home. Behind us, Sexy rocked back and forth like a bouy in a ferry's wake. "Needs new struts too, huh?" commented the driver. "They only rock like that when they do." His words sounded the death knell to the old girl's road career. Fixing her would cost more than she was worth. Our mechanic agreed. We've since purchased another. But I'm still amazed at the guy in that Fort Qu'appelle dealership. The Preacher said he'd walked in, told his story and asked if there was a car rental place in town (at 7:45 a.m, mind). Nope, the guy said, gave him the keys to the little beauty and told him to get going. No credit card, no signing on the dotted line. Nothing. When we returned the car he wouldn't accept payment. I didn't know there were people like that still out there. Obviously, God did, and I'm immensely grateful, in spite of the lack of squirm. Thanks, Jason. You can respond to this column at [email protected] |
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