A Quokka Dreeds its Weird

So, that did not go as planned.

My plan: drive down to LA while meditating on appropriate topics, attend virtual services with Halle and her son, and go to the beach to do tashlich, which we'd both missed on Rosh Hashanah.

What actually happened:

I was about one hour into the drive-and-repent when I spotted a crying woman on the phone beside a broken-down car. The car was in a quite dangerous spot, on a sort of dirt median between a very busy freeway entrance and a very busy freeway. Cars and huge trucks were zooming past at high speeds. It was in an area with the general vibe that there was not much there and what there was, was sketchy. It was also about 90F, with very high winds.

I would have pulled over, but by the time I saw her, I was too many lanes away to get over, and there was no place to pull over but behind her and no exit coming up. As I drove on, I thought that probably she'd be fine, she did have a phone and could call roadside assistance, someone else would surely pull over, and it would be a big hassle to get to her.

On the other hand, on this day of all days it seemed like I ought to put in the effort.

So I got off the freeway, got back on the freeway in the other direction, got off the freeway, and got back on so I was now behind her. This took about fifteen minutes and I was expecting to see either someone else or roadside assistance there by then. But no. She was still there.

So I pulled over and asked if I could help. She said she'd been there for two hours and I was the first person to pull over!

She gave me a brief of her situation, which was that her tire had exploded so forcefully that many of the nuts were gone. She had a spare tire, but no way to change it as it needed the nuts. She'd called her insurance, which had promised to send someone. The someone no-showed, so she called back. They promised to send someone else, who also no-showed.

While I was listening, she called her insurance again. They said she had failed to respond to a text they'd sent, so they were starting the entire process all over again. New ETA: 90 minutes.

I suggested that she call a local tow-and-repair place. She did so, and while we were waiting, I took her to a gas station so I could gas up and she could get a cold drink. She returned with two large, water-beaded, iced sodas, one for her and one for me. I have never in my life seen anything so delicious looking. That was the point where I had to explain that it was Yom Kippur and I couldn't eat or drink till sundown. (She'd also bought me a tasty-looking little cake.)

We returned to her car, and soon the supposed tow-and-repair representative showed up. He was not driving a tow truck. He was in a tiny little car, and he took one look at her tire and said he didn't have the right size of nuts so there was nothing he could do.

I said, "Can you go back to the shop and bring them? Or bring a tow truck?"

He said, "Uhhh, there's actually no shop or tow truck, it's just me and what I have in my car."

I said, "Do you know of any ACTUAL mechanics here who have an ACTUAL shop and tow truck?"

He suggested a place. We called them. They assured us they'd dispatch a tow truck with the correct nuts and be there in 45 minutes. We waited. They did not show up.

Throughout this, I was texting Halle dispatches and updates. This was the point where she said "SORRY Rachel, I have to take my son to the beach." I texted back, "I will cast my sins into a mud puddle."

We called the tow place. They didn't answer.

The woman I was with had been on a trip and was returning to her home in the valley, and I was also going to the valley. I'd offered to give her a ride if she was willing to ditch her car, which she understandably hadn't wanted to do. At this point, she said, "FUCK IT DRIVE ME BACK TO SYLMAR PLEASE."

So we moved all her stuff into my car, which happened to be hugely overstuffed so that was a bit complicated. And hot.

Just as we'd finished and I was LITERALLY about to pull out, a roadside assistance guy pulled up behind us. He was technically a cop but one of the ones who just rescues people and tags abandoned cars. He tried and failed to get the spare tire on.

He advised us that he could get the car towed, but it would go to an impound lot and be expensive to get back. If we left it with the intent of coming back and retrieving it, he would note that down and not do anything else to it as long as he was on shift for the rest of the day. After that, it would be up to whoever took over. So if she could get back by 7:00 PM, she could take the car and go.

We thanked him, abandoned the car, and I drove her to Sylmar. I then returned to Halle's place, where I discovered that they had not gone to the beach after all. By then it was about two hours till sundown. We did tashlich in her pool, lit a yahrzeit candle and said the names of the dead, and watched some of the service on live video.

At one point, in the middle of prayers, a woman shrieked, "SOMETHING'S SMOKING!" and rushed off. I assume she put out whatever it was, because service continued and we later saw her passing out snacks afterward.

The horns blew, and we broke our fast with latkes, salad, bagels with lox, and sparkling cider as the kosher wine turned out to be undrinkable. After her son went to bed, we talked into the night.