Award Tour Vol. 52: Decision Matrix

Flash back a few years...

It's Christmas time again. I am planning to drive home from Atlanta. Because it's a long drive, and I hate traffic, I am planning to leave in the wee hours of the morning - this is nothing new or extraordinary; it is standard operating procedure.

I had recently broken my leg, and was still getting around with the aid of crutches but it's not a debilitating circumstance. I can do everything that I could do before I hurt myself - I just can't walk so well - and I'm driving home, not walking home so no big deal.

So imagine my surprise, when I was packing up my things to leave, and my roomate at the time Jalen asked, "Aye, yo man - you sure you want to leave out right now?"

With a puzzled look on my face, I pause and think for a second - Is this a trick question? Don't I want to leave right now?

I reply, "Yeah, why not... is it snowing outside?" Jalen hunched his shoulder and sauntered off lazily and said, "alright man" - the pitch and tone of his farewell being quite ominous. To this day, I think if I had captured his words on a tape recorder and played it backwards it would have said "you're asking for it" in a slurred, mystical, whispering voice.

What was that all about? Does he know something I don't? Is a Gang War scheduled to erupt on the northbound lanes of I-85 tonight? Has the Mongolian Horde been spotted on Doppler Radar headed this way? Why shouldn't I leave?

Hmmmm. Maybe it's not such a good idea to get on the road in the dead of the night - afterall, I am on crutches. At this point I remind myself, "yeah, but you're not walking home, you're driving home". That's compelling logic.

And that settles it. I ignore his cautionary tone and pack up my car to leave - since when does good advice and pertinent warnings influence my decision matrix?

I get on the road, and as planned, there is little traffic. I will make the best time during these first few hours - since there are few State Patrollers out here. So I punch it; running about
eighty...
uh...
well...

...running slighly above the speed limit. About 45 minutes into my trip (when I am well outside even the friendly glow of the lights of Atlanta) I spot something lying in the middle of the road.

It's a deer - at least what remains of it. It's no longer shaped like a deer, but the mass of flesh is consistent with what you'd expect from that kind of road kill. No doubt, it had been ploughed by an 18 wheeler and subsequently dismembered and mashed into ever thinner and wider pieces of Deer shrapnel on the dark cold asphalt with each passing car. I would have like to have avoided it, but traveling at speeds of eighty...
uh...
well...

...slightly above the speed limit - it wasn't possible. It seems I will be contributing a brush stroke to this macabre street mural - trailing the deer blood and carcass miles up the interstate.

BAM!!!
Bumpity - Bumpity - Bumpity - Bumpity - Bumpity - Bumpity

I stand corrected. Seems I will not be smearing venison on the interstate very far at all. While the deer carcass has been pummelled by passing cars for quite some time, it seems that I am the first passer-by to actually address it's antlers - and in that all too frequent battle between steel belted radials and antlers - the bones won - much to my detriment.

The car begin to wobble and pull to the left (the front left tire was the one that hit the antler). I pull off on the side of the road, it's 3 a.m. - I'm an hour outside of Atlanta in a virtual no-man's land with no cellphone, no one looking for me, and only one good leg to stand on...

"Aye, yo man - you sure you want to leave out right now?"

I ignore the "Ghost of Jalen Past". I don't need this right now - the flat tire is "I told you so" enough. I gotta try to get back on track. I proceed to look for the spare tire. Before I can do this, I have to unload everything in the trunk of my car - and remember - I was going home for Christmas, so it was jam packed. I had spent almost half an hour finding the optimal configuration to fit everything in... now I had to unload it all (and remember how I unloaded it all) - so I could put it all back.

When I finally burrowed down deep enough to get into the trunk, I find that I don't have a spare at all... all I have is a doughnut - the small sickly looking tire that barely looks like it can stand up under it's own weight, let alone that of your car (and your entire Christmas ensemble). It's designed to take up a minimum of space in your trunk, and to give you just enough mileage to get back to civilization - you won't look sexy doing it - but you'll make it back.

So I grab the jack, lift the car up part of the way, grab what was meant to be a lugnut wrench and attempt to loosen the lugnuts. But they are on tight. This should have been a reassuring thing.

The Service Department of the Ford Dealership in Atlanta rarely did anything right when working on my car. It seemed they had me as a perpetual customer because while they were fixing the problem I was bringing in, they were simultaneous screwing up a functioning part of my car and setting the stage for my next visit. If this was an ordinary situation, and I needed them to have really secured my tires to my car, I would expect them to do something ridiculous like trying to Duct Tape them on so that the first time I made a turn, all the wheels rolled off in separate directions. But today is different. Today I need for the lug nuts to be loose and so naturally, they are sealed tighter than Grant's tomb. My car could take a direct hit from a stinger missle, and I think the tires would stay on the axle.

Nuts and bolts are all about torque - both for putting them together and taking them apart. And with the short-handled "Junior-Associate Edition" lugnut wrench that I'm using - I can't generate enough torque to beat a Middle School Cheerleader in an arm wrestling contest.

"Aye, yo man - you sure you want to leave out right now?"

Shut up "Ghost of Jalen past". Conceding defeat, I put the doughnut and the jack back into the trunk and begin to reassemble my bags and boxes into the remaining trunk space - like the Tetris puzzle it was. It's too dark to even know where I am so I get back in my car, turn on my hazzard lights (in hopes that no truck passing by smashes into me) and I go to sleep.

I wake up early in the morning around 6 or 7 and decide there's enough sunlight for me to hobble my way to the nearest exit. I get out of the car, grab a crutch and start heading south.

[Break]
The crutch was as much for my stability as it was a "Pity" card... yeah that's right. I played the "Pity" card. I'm not ashamed. I had a bad leg, and it was cold. I needed some empathy... you would have played it too.
[unbreak]

Though it's Christmas season and the time for giving, you wouldn't have known it as cars zoomed past me without so much as slowing down and considering to offer me a ride. Why should they? It's only the day we commemorate Jesus' birth, and a bitter 20 or so degrees Farenheit outside - no big deal. Finally when I get about a thousand feet down the road, an Asian couple stops and offers me a ride (God bless you two whoever you are, and wherever you may be).

They drop me off at a gas station where I call AAA. After giving them my Membership # they say they'll be there in about 30 minutes. Hmmmmmmm... that's going to be a problem - it's going to take longer than 30 minutes for me to get back to my car. I better find a short cut. So instead of just following the exit sign down the clear path back to the interstate (the reasonable thing to do), I tried to forge a short cut behind the strip mall...

...where no short cut usually ever exists. My laborious task of cructching through the boxes, dumpsters, and dead weeds littering the landscape behind the strip mall was rewarded with the discovery of a perimeter that was fenced in...

... entirely fenced in. For a man with only one good leg this is as effective as a force field - I have no way to overcome this. So I waste even more time, crutching back to where I was before to get to the exit.

"Aye, yo man - you sure you want to leave out right now?"

Will the "Ghost of Jalen past" ever be quiet? Because I have wasted so much time with my "short cut" now I have to hustle even harder to get back to my car. I crutch myself furiously towards my car. Cars zoom by once again but eventually a guy stops and offers me a ride (God bless you also). Turns out he WAS actually a Christian and offered me a ride to my car for no other reason than that.

I get back to the car just minutes before the AAA truck. I empty the trunk again, pull out the doughnut, and the AAA guy jacks the car up and takes off the lug nuts with his own lug nut wrench (which was shaped like a cross so that you could produce real torque). He quickly got the doughnut on, had me sign some paper work and I was ready to go.

Could it all be so simple? No. (Afterall, it's me telling the story - if it was that easy, you'd be disappointed). I get into my car, and attempt to start the engine, but it won't turnover. Not even a little, because I left my parking lights on all night and the battery died.

"Aye, yo man - you sure y-" SHUT UP!!!

Thankfully the AAA guy waited to see if everything was alright before he drove off. He gave me a jump, I rev the engine, and I drive off - at very low speeds. It's been 6 hours and I'm still in Georiga, and not only that, but now I'm headed back TOWARDS Atlanta instead of home. When I arrive at the house - Jalen at least acts like he's surprised to see me.

Jalen: Aye yo man, I thought you left out to go home?
Me: I did, I got a flat
Jalen: Oh wow man - everything alright
Me: Oh yeah man everything's cool - I just had to sleep in my car and wait for the AAA man
Jalen: You slept in the car
Me: Yep. But it's all good, I got a new tire and so I'm ready to roll
Jalen (with incredulous look on his face): You're going to leave right now to go home? Isn't it an 11 hour drive?
Me: Yeah, give or take.
Jalen: It still doesn't seem like a bad idea?

I guess he thought I would need rest, or be a bit disuaded from leaving given the ordeal I've just been through... but like I said, since when does good advice and pertinent warnings influence my decision matrix?