The early morning air was already sticky as Stephen loaded the last few bags into the back of the Jeep. I sat inside with Charlotte and Andrew as they finished their breakfast of dried cereal and bananas, mourning the end of another Fourth of July weekend in Atlanta and dreading the eight hour trip home looming in front of us.
We said the final goodbyes to our dear hosts, Lindsay and Kendall, and waved out the car windows as we pulled away from their townhome. The first leg of our trip was worse than expected. Post holiday traffic was brutal, locking us between cars and campers like a game of Tetris. One-and-a-half year old Andrew was not having it, and every desperate attempt to keep him entertained was met with screams. Four painful hours later, we exited Highway 75 with a Chick-fil-A in sight. Waffle fries were our only hope.
Stephen and I unfolded ourselves from the car. Stiff legs and restless booties were nothing compared to the emotional exhaustion of being trapped in the car with toddlers. We opened the back doors of the Jeep, unleashing the remains of the past 200 miles. Granola bar wrappers, emptied applesauce pouches, and smashed Goldfish spilled into the parking lot. Stephen began the search for tiny shoes as I unearthed the diaper bag from a pile of books, fire trucks, and blankets. I reached up to the front seat, grabbed our phones, and tucked them into the side pocket of the diaper bag. I again reached up to the front seat for our wallets.
The next few seconds moved in slow motion and double speed all at once. A reel of images raced through my mind, beginning with the unmistakable picture of our wallets - sitting on the small table next to the front door of our friends’ home. I rewatched the entire scene play out in my mind: Me, placing the wallets on the table next to the front door and making a mental note to grab them on the way out. And then me, walking out the front door empty handed. This realization emptied me of breath and froze my stomach in terror. Our wallets were four hours away on a small table in Atlanta. And we were here - in some no name town, too hungry and exhausted to even attempt reasonable problem solving strategies.
“Our wallets are in Atlanta,” I said to Stephen.
And as the words came out of my mouth, terror turned to panic. Money. We had no money. No cash. No credit cards. How would we eat? I raced through hideouts where I might have stashed some cash - pockets, cupholders, glove compartment, diaper bag. All came up empty. Maybe we could make it without food. We still had snacks and four more hours in the car. It would be rough, verging on deadly, but survivable.
And then the second wave hit harder than the first. Gas. We didn’t have enough gas to get home.
In crisis situations, particularly ones brought on by my own stupidity, it takes my body and mind a solid twenty minutes to move past the paralyzing anxiety and self-loathing to finally enter a state of problem-solving. So on this particular occasion, my mind was utterly useless as I began rattling off what I deemed our only options.
“I’m going to have to ask someone.”
“You’re gonna do what?” Stephen asked.
“Ask someone. Beg. I’ll find a nice looking family, explain the situation and ask for some money. That should get us enough to share a meal and have some left for gas. Or we need to call Lindsay and Kendall. They’ll get our wallets and meet us somewhere. We probably have enough gas to go back an hour or two.”
“You can’t ask them to do that.” Stephen’s ability to stay calm in crisis situations is annoyingly frustrating.
“It’s a desperate situation. And we’ll just pay them. We‘ll give them like $100 to bring our wallets. Or…” I began, shooting off other ideas before the previous one even had a chance to settle. “We can just start driving. We’ll run out of gas eventually and call AAA. They can probably just bill us for the gas. Or I’ll call Kendall and get our credit card number. Hopefully the cashier can just type that in to pay for lunch.”
“That one is worth a try,” Stephen said, still searching for a missing shoe.
I marched up to the Chick-fil-A counter not exactly sure what words were about to pour from my mouth. It wasn’t until the cashier told me to take a deep breath and calm down that I realized my hands were trembling and my voice was shaking as I explained the situation.
“We’ll get this worked out,” she said. “Let me go talk to my manager.”
I stood at the counter waiting, my eyes darting back and forth from my itching palms to the kitchen where the cashier had disappeared. I felt the eyes of every customer behind me staring as if the back of my skirt were tucked into my underwear. Had they heard my pathetic plea? Were they waiting and wondering how this would end or were they just irritated because I was holding up the line? I wished one of them would just slip me a twenty and end this anxiety.
The cashier emerged from behind the ice cream machine, and my mind began searching for a plan B. What was my plan B if she said they couldn’t manually enter a credit card number?
“Lunch is on us today.”
And that’s when I became the weeping woman at the Chick-fil-A counter. And I mean weeping. Like ugly cry, could barely speak, weeping. I whispered the words “thank you,” over and over again, until she finally had to cut me off and ask for my order.
Five minutes later the kids were settled into their Chick-fil-A routine: dunk a nugget into Chick-fil-A sauce, lick off the sauce, repeat. (It’s disgusting, but you can’t blame them.) At this point, Stephen was already knee deep into a solution for our quarter tank of gas. I was impressed with his creative problem solving, but his plan had a lot of moving parts, and it seemed unlikely they would all fall into place.
Exactly ten years ago, Stephen and I spent a summer day at Six Flags. We stopped at a Speedway on our way home for gas and slushies. As the Speedway cashier rang up our slushies, he asked if I had a Speedy Rewards card. I did not, and I wasn’t interested until he told me that for every five slushies I bought, I got one free. Sold. One form later, and I was out of there with my Speedy Reward card and 40% of the way to a free slushie. Stephen and I have continued to use that card whenever we pump gas at a Speedway and collect “reward points.” Years ago we looked online to see what our reward points could buy and laughed as we learned that even after years of using the card, we only had enough points for a free two-liter. “Maybe by retirement, we’ll have earned enough that I can take you on a date for Speedway hot dogs and two liters,” Stephen joked.
And here we were, nowhere near retirement, eating a free lunch at a Chick-fil-A somewhere in Tennessee and Stephen was downloading the Speedway app, hoping we had enough points for more than just hot dogs and two liters. He was hoping we’d earned enough for some free gas.
“Babe, there is no way,” I told him, stepping seamlessly into my role of dream crusher.
“Probably not. But I don’t have any other ideas.” He spent the next five minutes attempting various usernames and passwords because apparently back in 2006, we had set up an account. The kids were in the playland, and I sat staring at Stephen’s face as his finger scrolled the screen, watching for any sign in his eyes that this might work.
“Say something. What are you finding?”
“Wait….wait.….” He looked up at me. “We have enough points for a $25 gas card.”
I nearly jumped out of my seat before the next moving part of this plan sunk in. “There’s no way we can just walk into a Speedway and claim that. We probably have to send away for it.”
Stephen’s attention was back to his phone, and I knew he was only half listening to me. “There’s a Speedway two exits from here.”
“But did you hear what I said?”
“Yeah, but you’ll just have to explain the situation. Be charming and desperate and convince them to let us use it now. Start weeping again. It worked here,” he said with a smile. I opened my mouth to defend my weeping, but he cut me off before I could start. “I’m serious. You got us free lunch. You can get us this gas card. Customer service people love you.”
This is true. I have a long, successful track record with customer service, and have mastered the art of getting what I need with a balance of irritating persistence and genuine kindness. (Remind me to tell you about the time I returned a six-year-old blender and walked out of the store with a brand new one, never having even opened my wallet.) Stephen, on the other hand, loses his patience too quickly with customer service and always ending up asking to talk to a manager. I knew we were doomed if he walked into that Speedway.
“Pray for me. And don’t stop praying until I come back,” I told Stephen as I closed the car door and walked toward the Speedway entrance, armed with reward points, a desperate plea, and a good ugly cry should the need arise.
“Hi there,” I said to the lady behind the counter. “Well, I’m in a bit of a problematic situation, and I’m really hoping you’ll be able to help me.” My sob story came pouring out. No one else was in the store, so unlike at Chick-fil-A, I felt no rush to condense any details. I unleashed it all: Fourth of July in Atlanta, the miserable car ride, free lunch at Chick-fil-A, Six Flags, slushies, the Speedy Reward points. And then, my plea. “Is there any way I can claim this gas card right now and use it today so we can get home?”
“Yep,” she said. “Can I have your phone?”
Before I could process what was happening, she grabbed a gas card from the turnstyle on the counter, scanned it, and then scanned Stephen’s phone. I watched the neon green numbers appear on the cash register screen, and a $25.00 total canceled out to $0.00. She handed me the card, and I wondered if it would be appropriate to walk behind the counter to hug her.
Walking out of that gas station with the gift card in hand was one of the prouder moments of my life. Just between you and me, I doubt my long-winded tale of woe had anything to do with the successful ending, but I’d like to think my performance sealed the deal. We still felt it wise to drive home in the far right lane, cruise control set to just 5 miles per hour faster than the speed limit.
I didn’t know how well my tearful story would go over with a highway patrolman.
P.S. The free lunch and free gas didn’t seem so free when we had to pay $80 to overnight our wallets from Atlanta the next day.
