In Which Rodgy Buys a Root Beer Float and I am Humbled

It all started with $1.91 and a root beer float. So simple. So easy. So quick to just zip down to the gas station to buy it. At least, that's what I thought when I agreed to be Rodgy's chaffeur on his all-important mission to procure the coveted dream-float. How wrong I was.

It was an average April day in East Texas, much like this one. (Well, it was this one.) Green, warm, sticky, decent in the shade. The gas station (the name of which has slipped my memory) was a touch on the sleezy side, old, a little bedraggled and oily with uneven pavement in the parking lot. Located across from the golf course, about a two minute from the house.

Surviving yesterday without the Ultimate Bottled Root Bear Float had almost proved too much for Rodgy, and it was no surprise when the first words out of his mouth when I arrived at their house were,

"Can Cassie take me to buy the float, Mom?" I was happy to take him, so we hopped into The Van and chugged off down the road. I was thinking over the day, pleased at having opened a checking account that morning, even if the lady at the desk had asked "Now, how old are you?" It's the second time this week someone's thought I was fifteen instead of nineteen. But no biggy, I thought; I'm doing pretty good. I can write checks, I can drive...

Beside me in the passenger's seat, Rodge was fiddling with his coins, his mind on nothing but the float to come.

We reached the gas station, hopped out, and breezed into the store. Rodgy quickly located and bought his float, and I spent my last dollar bill and some change on an eyebrow-raising shot of Something Caffeinated to help get Connor through the school day.

On the way back to the van, Rodgy popped the top off his root beer float can and once we got in, he let me have a sip. Mmm! Nice and chilly, and kind of creamy. Well, he was satisfied. Everything was peachy until...

The key wouldn't turn. I put the key in the ignition and turned, but it wouldn't move. I pulled it out and stuck it in the other way and it wouldn't turn then, either. I wiggled it. It would click towards me, but when I tried to start it, it wouldn't budge. Should I push the brake? Should I push the gas? Should I push the key harder?

Inside the car it was hot and damp, and I could feel sweat creeping onto my neck and forehead and around my nose where it felt red. Rodgy sat looking on, holding his float. He took the key and tried. I opened my door, but there was that exasperating alarm-clock-like buzzing it makes when the key is in. Neither of us could stand that, so I closed the door again.

"Open yours," I told Rodge. So he opened it, admitting a life-saving breath of cool air. It didn't help the key, though. I sat staring at it, praying silently, commenting matter o' factly to Rodge about the process. Surely there was just one certain thing to do, and God could just tell me, and then it would be fixed. Right?

"Ok, God, what's the problem here?" I asked inwardly. The answer came back inside, like an echo bouncing off a wall.

"Your pride."

My heart sank a smidgin. Suddenly I was sitting in the same van in the Vashey's driveway again with six warm, dirty kids, tense, sweating in the driver's seat, trying in vain to turn the key. Mrs. Vashey and Rodgy arguing over jumper cables. Mrs. Jackson saying "Honey, you want to get out and let me try that?" They were all so nice, but...

Well, I knew the key wasn't going to turn until I did what I had to do. I had to ask for help. So I looked at Rodgy.

"Let's go in and see if we can call your Mom." I said. He was already digging change out of his pocket.

"I have a couple of nickels," he volunteered, "I think we could use the pay phone."

"Let's try inside first," I countered. I couldn't see ten cents going very far with a pay phone, even if it did look close to antique.

"I'm so embarressed," I told Rodge. "It makes me feel dumb, especially since people think I'm still only fifteen. Do you know what I mean?"

"Yeah, I know how you feel." he replied understandingly.

I went to the counter and asked if I could "please use the phone because our car won't start and he lives just down the road but I need to call his mom..." The lady looked at me a little blankly and told me she couldn't understand what I'd just said.

"Could I use your phone?" I asked, more clearly. "Our car won't start."

It was a cord phone, but she managed to put it in a place where the cord would reach over the counter.

"Hello," Deb said on the other end, cheery as usual. I explained. There was a lot of Hmming. It wasn't that we were so far from home, but just that there wasn't another vehicle to come get us with.

"It sounds like the key's stuck," she said. "Try wiggling it a lot. Wiggle it hard."

Ok. I could wiggle it hard. I put the phone back, hoping I wouldn't need it again. We went back to the van hopefully. Silent prayer. Insert key. No go. Jiggle. Wiggle. Wiggledy iggldey dwiggle. Nothing. I wiggled and pushed and turned and wiggled some more, and then so did Rodgy, in between glances at his A&W float, which he held lovingly in one hand.

We went through all the things we knew to try, and added a few sacred rites in for good measure...Rodge even licked the key and wiped it on the seat before sticking it in, but to no avail. In spite of the open passenger side door, sweat swarmed on me like some kind of parasite, and I could feel it trickling in little rivulets under my black t-shirt. Too bad my cell phone is with Mom, I thought. Or rather, with Dad, because Mom has the other one...and then...maybe Mom is still in town, just coming home, and could pick us up!


Instinctively feeling that it was time to give up for now, I decided to let Rodgy have a go at the pay phone. As I figured, the nickels weren't enough, but I had a few quarters. I dropped them in, and I told him the numbers while he dialed the cell phone. We waited. Nothing. And then, ka-chink! Two quarters fell into the change slot. So we tried dialing before inserting the coins, instead.

That didn't work either. I stood there listening to the fuzzy sound mingled with highway background noise, staring across Smelly Road and the driving range and wondering how far the walk home really was. Rodge dug the coins out of the machine and we tried again, closely following the instructions, which were in tiny blue print. There was the fuzzy noise, the familiar ka-chink, but no coins. Poking in with his finger, Rodge reported that one of the quarters had lodged where he couldn't reach it, blocking the other one. The machine had eaten our money.


So, it was back to the nice lady with the old maroon phone. She brought it out again, looking slightly amused, or so it seemed to me. I dialed. Busy.

Rodge and I wandered around the store a bit while grungy fellows with scary beards went back and forth. Rodge left his float in a bin of ice and Bud Light to stay cool, and we browsed through the ice cream, cat food, and toothpicks. he bought us a package of Nutty Bars to share and I downed mine appreciatively in three bites or so (nervous eating). We were starting to have fun though. Rodge thought we could probably survive happily there in the gas station, and I suggested we move next door into the little shack with the sign that said "Barber Shop."

Finally I called Deb again. My next resort was going to be Dad's cell, though I knew that he was at Chris's shop with our truck and probably wouldn't be able to come any time soon anyway. Deb answered again, but neither of us had an answer for the problem.

"Well, we can just hang out here a while," I said. It wasn't that great of a catastrophe, really.

"No," Deb said, "I'll just bring the boys down there and see what I can do." This is one brave lady. She was going to WALK here to meet us with her baby in a sling, herding a passel of little boys, including Tucker and my little brother Ethan, The Ultimate World Slow-Pokes. It wasn't very far to the gas station, driving, but I had the feeling that it was a lot farther than we would think, walking. I could envision her still trodding along come supper time, little boys in tow. Ethan would be in that sling, too.

"That's a long way to walk," I protested.

"It can't be that far," she replied. I've never seen or heard of a Mom of Six with so much youthful optimism. Maybe this is why she's headed for Ukraine, and why I love being around her so much.

"Oh yes it can," I said (or at least thought).

"I'll be there in half an hour or so."

I said bye and put down the phone. So there was nothing for it. She was coming, and I figured we had better get comfortable, because it might be midnight before they got here. But I thought first, I'd give the van just one more try. Third time's the charm, right?

"Rodge, let's go try the van one more time." I said. He was standing beside his "beer," stroking it comfortingly where it sat in the ice bath with the real beers.

"I think I'll just stay in here and keep my float company," he replied.

"No, come with me," I said, "I need your support!"

So he obliged. I fingered the keys, approaching the van with a sort of resignation, while still entertaining a small hope. I hopped in, turned the key, and, Zhoom! It started right up, as if there had never been anything between us. Like nothing had ever happened.

"Yes!" I cried. We could go home! I looked at Rodge. "I guess I'll go call your mom...or, no...we'll just go meet them!"

"Now I can put my float in the freezer and colden it up again," he exulted. He'd been saving it the whole time.

In two mintues, we were in the driveway. I clocked the distance-- just over one mile. So, not as crazy a walk as I expected. But I was relieved anyway.

Deb met us in the driveway, Noah secured in a sling that wrapped around her shoulders. Ultimate Flexible Woman of the Century. My heroine.

"We were all ready for a nice walk," she said, grinning at us. Up on that hill, the breeze felt sweet and the stickiness kind of melted away. Rodge was bearing his Precious Float away to Arctic Regions to be rechilled for Ideal Consumption Later On.