Recent Adventures in Impatience

I hadn't planned to spend Easter in Yankton. I was excited to spend Easter with some friends in Iowa, especially as the rest of my weekend I spent alone, housesitting. But Easter Sunday proved to be a day of the unexpected and inconvenient. As I was driving through town, my car decided to die at a red light. It started up again, after I put on my hazard lights and switched it back to park. I figured that something was probably wrong with that mysterious realm under the hood. I hoped that it was the battery. I took it to the Walmart on the outskirts of town. They prepared to change the battery. I wandered the store until I heard my name, mispronounced, and a message urging me to return to the auto center.

"It's not your battery, ma'am," the attendant informed me, "your old battery had charge, about as much as it should have. But when we put the new battery in and tried to start it, it wouldn't start."

He recommended putting the old battery back in, which I agreed to.

By and by, he shuffled back in. "It still won't start. Let me show you what it's doing." He handed me the protective glasses for the rare visitors to the back of the garage.

No doubt he was feeling fatherly as he explained if there is battery trouble then electrical things, such as the lights and radio, won't come on. He tried starting it again. It turned over and over, but the engine failed to start. He got out and I got in. Nothing happened. My poor Volkswagen refused to start.

"It's probably some problem with gas getting to the engine, like a fuel pump problem, or something."

Well, the only thing that he could do for me was put it in neutral and get it out of the garage.

In a rare moment of foresight, I had added roadside assistance to my insurance policy as I switched states. I called the 800 number and had a pleasant conversation with the helpful customer representative. At least I could get the car towed somewhere.

I knew then that it would be a day of waiting, and that nothing would go to plan. I sat in my car, reading Rumer Godden's memoirs and waiting for the tow truck. My kite and sun hat half-mocked me as they reminded me of what I had expected that wasn't to be now.

The tow truck arrived sooner than estimated and another kindly older man hopped out. I watched the shame of my vehicle being winched up onto the platform. There's something heart-wrenching about a tow, that brings a feeling of guilt to a negligent car owner.

Wiser heads have come up with adages for such situations. Patient old grannies would shake their heads and mutter, "a stitch in time saves nine." Ah yes, I thought, ignoring check engine lights and the increasing reluctance of the engine to start leads to situations such as this one. Patience is necessary to be a good car owner.

The tow trucker driver was helpful, the car was moved to a shop to await a workday and a mechanic's attention. I was dropped off at my apartment, laden with hat, kite, and all the other paraphernalia that I had expected possibly needing for a delightful Easter.

So I walked over the bridge to Nebraska and sat in the sand by the river. I talked to my family. I read T.S. Eliot.

I walked the dog. I discovered some flowers along the creek that runs through town.

I came back and ate an Easter dinner of tacos. I drank a hard cider. I sat on the porch and smoked the pipe that my brother made me. I read some more Godden.

It was a slow afternoon. It was a very slow afternoon. At long last the slowness was relieved by the arrival of my roommate and her brother.

And I am lacking in patience.

I might paraphrase St. Augustine's famous prayer into "O Lord grant me patience, but not yet."

But Easter is about a way out of our sinful, vice-laden existence. Christ has conquered death.

The acquiring of virtue is something that I don't understand fully. I want to be patient, but how does one become patient? Isn't it by being patient, and after failing to be patient, trying to be patient again? I suppose one strives to be patient with the inconvenient, that one humbly begs for God's help, and that one does not ignore the small signs which indicate that trouble is brewing in the engines of life.