ANYWAY, I had quite the experience back in January driving to Detroit for the first time. If you know me at all, you know three things - 1. I am a terrible driver 2. I get very nervous navigating around places I'm not familiar with on my own 3. I am very paranoid and I get really scared in shady cities like Detroit. Plus on top of all that, I spent the night before googling the shadiest areas of Detroit so needless to say I was feeling pretty scared to go into the city. Luckily, everyone had been telling me that the orchestra hall is on one of the main drags of the city (Woodward) so as long as I stuck to that street and didn't wander too far, I'd be ok.
So I start on my journey and everything's going well when, about 30 min. into my drive, I'm cruising along in the left lane and see a big ol' chunk of what I thought was black snow/slush. There were cars all around me so I couldn't exactly swerve out of the way and I thought, "Oh well I'll just roll right over it, it's just snow." AU CONTRAIRE my friends this was not soft snow but some kind of rock-hard piece of...rock. I felt and heard a huge KA-CHUNK on my left front wheel and immediately my stomach flipped. I tried to stay calm and kept driving, promising myself that if I noticed anything off about the car, I'd pull over. Well, I got into Detroit, drove a little bit through the city (even the supposedly un-shady parts look SHADY) just praying that I could get to the parking garage by the orchestra hall where I knew I would be safe. I mean, I was a blonde girl driving a bright red car with Utah plates with my little GPS inside...how much more could I scream, "JUMP ME PLEASE I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE I'M GOING!"
Well thank heavens I got into the parking garage safely without having to pull my car over (although I could tell something was seriously wrong with my tire), got out of my car, and discovered that my front left tire was JACKED. Totally flat. So of course the first thing I did was call Joe and tell him what happened. I unfortunately couldn't do much about it because I had to be in my rehearsal but luckily Joe was at home and in a position to take care of it. He called USAA (thank goodness we have roadside assistance) and set up a time for someone to come and change my tire after my rehearsal.
After my rehearsal, I came back out to the parking garage and expected to wait for the guy for the next half hour. Well lo and behold I hadn't been out there for two minutes when the guy called saying he was pulling into the parking garage! I hadn't even gotten to my car yet so he swung around and picked me up and we drove to my car. Now, this guy was a CHARACTER. Big black guy, big smile, named Larrance (pronounced Luh-rahnce). He was the nicest guy EVER...kept calling me "Miss Katie." Here are a few of my favorite excerpts from our conversation:
"Well thanks for coming and helping me Larrance, I just moved to Michigan a few months ago so I'm not too familiar with the area."
"Oh, really? Do you like it here, Miss Katie?"
"Yeah, we love it, it's great!"
"REALLY?!?"
"Larrance, how much should I drive on this spare tire? My husband told me I shouldn't drive too fast on it."
"Miss Katie, do you know what kind of tires they used on the original Model T Fords?"
"Umm...not sure?"
"BICYCLE TIRES! I mean seriously, they were drivin' around on bike tires on those things and they were just FINE! So you'll be fine on this tire here, Miss Katie, don't worry about goin' too fast or anything like that."
And my personal favorite...
"Man it sure is cold out here, Larrance!"
"I know...it is so cold it makes me want to SHOUT!"
Anyway, I was very very grateful that I got my tire taken care of and that Larrance was so nice to me when I was feeling pretty scared and vulnerable. After he got the tire replaced, he drove off and I swung around to leave the parking garage. I was not looking forward to paying the seven bucks it cost to park there, but in my panic to take care of my tire, I didn't pick up a Civic Orchestra parking pass. I figured it was worth the money to park somewhere safe and not have to park on a creepy side street. So I pulled up to the booth, scrambled around in my wallet for cash, and the lady at the window said, "Hey you know what, don't worry about paying, sweetheart! My shift's about to end and I am just done for the day! You go along now." That just MADE my day. I mean, seriously, talk about a cherry on top!
So I've decided that Detroiters are a lot nicer than people give them credit for! Of course I'm sure that there are still some very scary and creepy people in that city, but I felt very sure that I was being watched after and protected by my Heavenly Father that day. He knew that I was feeling worried and scared so he put some wonderful people in my path to help me out. And luckily none of my trips to Detroit after that have been quite so eventful!
