Car Trouble?

Leaving right ontime from Pittsburgh. Mom is happily riding with me today and no sooner do I pull away from the curb than we hear a terrible noise in the front right wheel area. Mom and I quickly determine that it would not be okay to drive 8 hours to Evansville, IN with Falkor making this scraping, clacking sound. Dad and I take off the wheel downtown Pittsburgh. It's the day after Christmas and the streets are virtually barren, we know the area a little bit becasue we've spent the morning touring the city with Jason (our Couchsurfing host). Dad can't find anything wrong just by taking off the wheel. I put my iPhone to good use by finding an open garage nearby: Monro Muffler, Brake and Service. My heart was going pitter-pat as we made our way to the garage. I was sure that something deadly was up with Falkor and dastardly thoughts of woe were cirling in my brain: "what do I think I'm doing, going on a three month roadtrip?" The mechanics there were cheerful and helpful. My fears were put to rest when they got Falkor up on the lift and saw that one of the bolts in my front right caliper was completely missing, this had cause the other bolt to loosen and the noise was coming from the caliper clacking along merrily to the motion of the road and grinding terribly when the brakes were applied. Tom and Stuart found a used caliper out back that had the correct size bolt and pnuematically tightened all the bolts down. They told me: "all fixed" and I was so excited and relieved I hugged Stuart on the spot. I had some Christmas cookies (a'la Annie, thank you!) in my pack and I brought them to the counter in the waiting room as extra Christmas/thank you cheer. They were touched by the cookies and my profuse thanks but not as touched as I, by my Monro angels, Tom and Stuart, who fixed the terrible noise and allayed all my fears.

This episode was a wonderful lesson for me. I am but at the start of a long journey. Car troubles will happen. But they will be fixed. It might take a few days or it might take a few minutes. I have to trust in myself and the world to have what it takes to mend anything that needs fixin'

Amen.