What a day! What a day!

I was out traveling for the university on Wednesday, November 9th, up in the Chicago-area. Upon my arrival to the last hospital I was to visit, the school car got a flat tire. It did not just spring a little leak; it was completely deflated. I immediately called Keith, head of transportation back in Marion, for assistance. The phone conversation went as follows:

"Hello, Keith Roorbach," he answered.
"Hi Keith! This is Kristi Fields."
"What's wrong with the car?" he asked.
"How did you know that something was wrong with the car?" I said.
"You never call just to say hello! Something must be wrong with the car!"

God was really watching out for me because he didn't let the tire go flat to where the car was no longer drive-able until I reached the hospital. Because of this, I was able to give Keith the exact street address of where I was located (praise God!). He tried looking up the nearest service stations to where I was and called me back. He told me there was good news and bad news. Good news was that there were 10 service stations within one mile of where I was; the bad news was that half of those numbers didn't work and the other half didn't speak english. *sigh*

Luckily, one of the ladies at the front desk spoke spanish fluently and was able to give the serviceman exact instructions on how to get to the hospital. The nice men put the spare on for me while I stayed in the car. Gibson (my dog) didn't necessarily care for the men jacking up the car while we were in it, but that's ok. We made it to the repair shop for them to replace the tire - no problem. The problem came when I went to pay for it. I handed them my credit card (they're for emergencies, and this was an emergency), and he said, "No, no, no, no. No machine (makes motion like the swiping of the credit card)." The bill came to $90, and I had $73 in cash. I handed him $70 and requested to go get the rest from a nearby ATM. Thank God they let me go!

I made it to my information meeting at 5:55pm; it started at 6pm. Again, thank you Lord for giving me green lights and no traffic! After the meeting was over, I was finally able to get dinner. I drove across the highway to Benigan's for take-out. To order take-out, you have to order it from the bar, so I was sitting there waiting on my food, and this odd man walks up next to me and begins talking to me. Normally, I would be up for talking to anyone, but this man was somewhat odd. I could barely understand a word he was saying.

The conversation went from, "Hi, I'm Tom," to, "My dad was really tall and because he was really tall he's a really good basketball player. And because he was a really good basketball player and because he was so tall, that got him out of going to the Korean War." Tom then proceeded to tell me that his dad has a twin brother named Pete, who was also tall and very good at basketball, all the while, making this half-laugh-half-snort sound. He told me that his last name was Slavic, just before whipping out his Texas driver's license. I sat there staring blankly at the license before sputtering, "Um, I don't get it." Tom then told me, "See, you could go to this state and you'd fit right in with your accent." (I evidently have a southern accent, at least according to Tom.) My food finally came and not a moment too soon. The bartender asked if I needed change, and I told him no. I looked back at Tom with his lost puppy dog expression and said, "Whelp, bye!"

You may think I'm making this up, but seriously - could I really make all that up? I'm a creative storyteller, but not that creative! ;)