Pep Boys

I have been meaning to tell this story for awhile because I know there are lots of people who will enjoy it. Time got the best of me and now we will see if I remember the details clearly.

Who knows the date, and who cares. It is irrelevant. We wake up and our cruise ship is at the port in Tampa. It is a bittersweet arrival. We have a long drive, so we choose to carry all of our luggage off the ship ourselves because it will get us through customs quicker. This is quite the task since Mom is on crutches, making her arms altogether useless for carrying all but one of her four pieces of luggage. Despite this, we make it off the ship without much ado, save for Bog being forced to take an elevator or two. 

The real action begins once we hit the road. 

We are all tired, sad, but excited to be on our way back to our own beds. 

Right away we notice that something is a little off with the car. No need trying to figure out whose idea it was or who pressured who, but either way Dad pulls the car over and turns it off. Naturally it won’t start back up. He opens the hood, looks around, and all hope is lost. But hope is quickly restored THANK THE GOOD LORD because within five minutes a tow truck drives by, sees the sad look in our discouraged eyes, and pulls over to save the day. He will tow our Dodge Journey to Pep Boys. My dad is a fan of Pep Boys and says they always work hard. Things are going as well as we can expect. 

After cash is exchanged Mr. Towtruckdriver puts two and two together and informs us of a Florida law that prevent us from riding in our car on the tow truck (while this is a bummer, I did not even ask because it would be a tad nonsensical and unlike the government to let us do something so thrilling and fun) and that his cab, once he clears his garbage out of the way, only holds two other passengers. There are five of us and as I stated, my mother is on crutches. Free pass to tow truck ride. That leaves Dad, Bog, Chenae, and I. Dad asks Chenae if she would like to ride. She accepts. Mr. Towtruckdriver offers to call us a cab. We decline. Thanks, but we will figure it out. We all know what we will be doing.

Tow truck driver told us that it was four miles away. Piece of cake. None of us are dressed to run. My dad is in nice shorts and my sister and I are wearing sandals. We start walking, taking the closest on-ramp backwards. Next is a short-cut through a crusty clay pit. I find the wet clay and come very close to being covered in clay for the next two days. Luckily, I was trained by ninjas so I recovered my footing in the nick of time.  

It only take three blocks of this morning Florida heat to get my dad’s shirt off. I have to give him the benefit of the doubt because we are moving at quite the clip. To give you a better idea of how we look at this point, we are power-walking down the sidewalk of a highway that goes through a busy part of Tampa. We currently move in a single-file line, my father, me, then Bog taking selfies. My father’s shirt is already off and I am quick to follow suit. It is hot, I am as confident as a lion, and I reason that I will never see any of these people again. To my surprise, my sister crumbles under the pressure. While my tan family members simply hold their shirts, I fasten mine across to lower back to prevent my pale nether-backs from the unforgiving sun. 

So there we are. Obviously we are tourists, walking though a district called Habana, without shirts and appearing to have a goal in mind. This is the part where you can picture it and laugh hysterically.

We need sustenance. It is nearing the time for elevenses. Luckily, along the horizon, we saw a CVS. We bought Gatorade and the Cuban cashier gave us the special discount, probably because I wowed him with a thrilling rendition of “Represent Cuba.” Also, I asked him for directions to the nearest Pep Boys because we were wondering if the tow truck driver lied to us because we felt like we had walked ten miles. Still two miles to Pep Boys.

As we exit the store we remove our shirts because it is high noon and the sun is blistering hot. A tumbleweed blows across the 4 lane highway. We ravenously down our gatorade. But really that was just me. Everyone else drinks at a normal rate. Freaks.

By now we are so desperate to arrive that we run more than walk. I have fallen behind because I have the shortest legs (also I am the laziest, I think). 

Is that Pep Boys up ahead or a mirage caused by dehydration? Oh. Twas a mirage. 

Finally we see the real Pep Boys. Dad gets so excited for the air conditioning that he abandons Bog and I and goes Frogger-style to cross the highway. Bog and I only caused three accidents as we crossed. 

Everyone around Pep Boys thinks we are crazy, and maybe we are.