2006-04-17 - 1:59 p.m.

I was making my across the parking lot en route to lunch, scanning the endless ocean of vehicles in search of my lil black SUV when I heard a frantic horn honking. The kind often associated with either a child left alone in the car or a potential rape/car jacking.

Feeling the burn in my hamstrings and quads from a weekend of weeding and planting in the garden, I hesitated. Could I deliver the kind of roundhouse kick that would scare off the would be assailant? Or would I become just another orifice primed and helpless for violation?

Swallowing my fear of rear entry, I pivoted and made the short jog to the sound of the horn honking. As I arrived (alone) to the scene, I came upon a fragile old hobbit of a woman, looking extremely distressed and honking her horn frantically. Her driver side door stood ajar and she was half-in, half-out of the car herself. I slowed up my jog and she jumped out of the car exclaiming, "Thank heavens. A man has come to my rescue."

No kidding. In typical 1940's movie jargon (which made sense as I placed her at somewhere between 70 and prehistoric), she related her dilemna to me. She had come to the medical building for an appointment. (and judging from the bandage on the bridge of her nose, I imagine it was something to do with her sinuses. Either that or she was getting patched up after her Ultimate Geriatric Fighting Bout against Dolly "Don't Need No Damn Depends" Madison) And since she didn't have one herself, her husband had let her borrow his car.

She had finished her appointment and returned to her car, only to find that she couldn't get it to shift gears once she started it. This had lead to a momentary panic, which produced the crazyass honking and thus, here we were.

I told her not to worry, we'd have everything fixed in a jif (yes i said jif... cmon, she said "Thank Heavens" first). I ducked my head into the car, noting the typical old lady smell (an equally soothing and nauseous mix of estee lauder, dryer sheets and stale air). On every important gauge, gear shift, dial, etc... was an individual post it note explaining the objects name and purpose. Her husband had taken the time to make all of these post-it notes and affix them in the hopes that his wife would have no trouble operating the vehicle to and from her appointment.

I was equal parts frieghtened and touched... scared that this woman needed instructions like "D = drive, R= Reverse" and yet touched at the same time that her husband would go through the troubles of labeling everything so that she might maintain her independence, rather than be taxied to and from her appointment.

Anywho, I got in the car, gave it a good crank (it started on the first try) and slowly placed the car in reverse without effort. She gasped in delight and showered me with praise and exclaimed that all it took was "a man's touch." Working in an office of Type A alpha females for as long as I have, I almost immediately corrected her on her overly chauvinistic compliment... but instead I let it slide. It felt good to have my manliness complimented, especially in a day and age where "being a man" is somehow synonymous with being a jerk, a meathead, a dumbass, etc.

I put the car in park and hopped out, letting granny jump in and make her way home. Unfortunately, as she went to put the car in reverse, the gear shift appeared to be stuck and wouldn't budge despite her skeletal claw yanking it with all its might.

She immediately went into panic mode again, and only after a few seconds of analyzation did I discover that she wasn't depressing the break before shifting. Pointing this out to her, and subsequently noticing the post-it note which had fallen to the floorboard depicting this very same fact, she became very relieved and extremely grateful.

I promised her I wouldn't budge from the parking lot until she'd gotten out ok, and I kept my word, watching until her tiny sedan had exited the lot, made a turn onto Hospital Drive, then College and finally out of sight. Part of it was being sure that she was safe in the knowledge that I was watching out for her, the other half was the morbid fascination with what could possibly happen to this poor woman who needed a post-it note that read "Keys go here."

So basically, I had been on my way to lunch, already formulating this hateful entry about my cracked windshield and spending an easter alone...

And yet in the end, as it so often does, life flicked me in the nutsack, just enough to remind me that this world is so much bigger than the narrow little pinhole through which I view it.

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