It was early December. I was living in my parents RV. The weather had
reached seventeen degrees Fahrenheit. The propane had run out in the night (no
wonder I was so cold and couldn’t pull myself from the covers) and the water
had frozen in the water hose.
I stared at my overnight bag, half-packed from the weekend before, I
thought "Ok, I'll call Kelly and run over to her place to take a shower.
No, I've got to be at school in twenty minutes. I'll grab the bag and get ready
at school. Why? It's not like you're going to have a shower there?" I
pulled on my nicest outfit I had packed. A wool plaid, black and white dress to
be paired with a black turtle neck which I layered over my PJs because there
was no way I was pulling any clothing off my body in those temperatures, put on
my nicest pair of boots (the only ones tall enough to hide my PJ pant legs),
donned my bright red dress coat, did the best I could with my hair and left for
school.
I craved the feeling of heat in my car. I had a 7
minute drive and knew only the last two would have any amount of remote heat. I
felt sick and prayed that I wouldn't get anymore nauseous than I already was.
The smell of fertilizer plants and cow feed in the morning always made me
queasy; the violent cold wasn’t helping either.
Upon arriving, I felt immediate warmth of the
hallway. Then I went to my classroom only to be greeted with bitter cold. The
heater for my side of the hallway did not work. I'll handle this. By
mid-morning, I was debating if I would feign illness, rent a hotel room for the
day/night to get warm, or if I would be moving my classes to the library. I
froze. My children worked with coats, scarves, hats, gloves. We were cold. In
small groups, we would hover around my table underneath which I had placed a
small space heater. I was not sure if I could have one, but at this point, I
decided begging for forgiveness was favorable to asking for permission.
On the way to work that morning, I had texted a
friend from church to see which men in the church worked in a nearby town to
see if they could help me. My friend responded with a list of names. I proceeded
to text or call each family. I was greeted with the same message. "He's
not working today; He's sleeping; etc." Essentially, the answer was no,
please do this on your own. I smiled back tears and pretended it was no big
deal. I couldn't help but feel that if those ladies or their daughters had been
living in an RV for months and had run out of propane and weren't strong enough
to lift the propane bottle that somebody would help them out. I had never felt
more alone. I wanted to screech out my frustration, but opted to err on the
safe side.
When my lunch break arrived, I left campus with
notice to the secretary that I might be gone my conference as well. I silently
wondered if the heater in my classroom still wasn't working that afternoon, if I would be bursting into the old
country song “Take This Job and Shove It." Reminding myself that
you should never think angry thoughts or they could manifest when very
inconvenient, I drove back to the RV for one last try. No luck.
As I was driving back into town feeling like an
epic failure, I called my brother. I couldn't call my daddy. As much as I knew
my daddy loved me, I knew there would be a million questions asked and I didn't
really feel like answering them and definitely didn't have the time. Besides,
it would require a vacation day and at least six hours of travel for him to
come to my rescue. I knew he would do it, but would be troubled at the
situation. By the time he got there, the only place in town that sold propane
would be closed. My brother on the other hand could listen to me cry, feel
sorry for me, then tell me to suck it up and do it. He gave simple
instructions, “Find an Aggie and hold the ol’ Aggie Network over them.”
I tried to think who locally was an Aggie. I
recalled a visit with the lady who had the frame shop; her husband and boy(s)
were Aggies. Surely, they could help me. I walked in and tried to calmly tell
her my story. I paused midway because I was about to lose it. I am usually
quite stoic when I am frustrated, but the cold was getting to me, and the fact
that I had five hours (four of which would be spent at my freezing work place) to
resolve it or I would be sleeping in the cold again was sorely grating at my
nerves.
I asked if her husband or sons would be willing
to help me; I would pay them to take care of it. I wasn’t asking for a handout.
She nodded sympathetically and referred me to someone in town who she thought
might do a favor for someone. (Are you kidding me? A favor? It’s not a favor
when I’m willing to hand you green backs.) I left the store in search of the
business she had suggested.
I located the building in town and opened my
door. As I put my feet down, I felt the all too familiar feeling. Gravel. I was
in $400 leather Vanelli boots and here I was about to go traipsing through an
oil and gas warehouse and would have to walk in gravel. As I carefully walked
through the gravel, the cold stinging my face, I glanced around to see if
Ashton Kutcher’s Punked show was around because it really couldn’t get any more
absurd.
As I climbed the huge homemade stairs, I yelled
with all the fake confidence I could muster “Hello! I’m looking for John! Is
anyone here?” I found my way to an office of sorts and began to explain (plead)
my case. Fortunately, the man working there took pity on me and said that he
would take care of it.
He agreed to help, I handed him my keys to the
RV. What could he possibly take of value at this point?
I returned to school just in time to pick my
students up for recess. I chatted casually with the teachers. I finally let my
curiosity emerge. I asked “What do y’all know about ol John that works out at
________?” The teachers quickly informed me he was married, that I should look
elsewhere, and that it was none of my business. I simply replied, “Well, I just
handed him the keys to my RV; it better be my business.”
At the end of the school day, I stopped by the
business, paid the tab, and profusely thanked them for the assistance.
While it’s somewhat of an anti-climactic ending,
I still can’t help myself from wondering if that really happened. It sounds
like a terrible dream, but it was my reality.
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