Growing Up in Sour Earth

“Look at that tree growing up there out of that grating. It gets no sun, and water only when it rains. It's growing out of sour earth. And it's strong because its hard struggle to live is making it strong. My children will be strong that way.” 

Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

If know you me personally or just follow my life’s adventures through Facebook, you know that I am a bubbly talkative extrovert, very hyper, and a little ditzy.  I’m not being self-deprecating; my mind just moves so quickly, my consciousness often has a delayed reaction to a previous tangent.

I’m blessed with a seemingly endless well of creativity, and have experimented with every medium available to me.  About five years ago, I started doing mixed media sculpture, and found my artistic home there. It no longer matters to me that others understand my work; it is what satisfies me. Typically, daily I take a couple of hundred pictures, write, and spend at least an hour outside at my favorite pond.  My sculpture, photography, writing, and that outside meditation keep me centered, and prevent my mind from implosion caused by my own unrelenting thunderstorms of thought. A creative mind like mine is dangerous when restricted; obsessing over irrelevant details that deadlock the thought process and entangle the emotions in triviality.

Despite my outward flighty presentation, emotionally, I am ridiculously strong, because I grew out of “sour earth.” My parents married because I was on the way, and divorced when I was four, by which time my two younger siblings had been born. It was emphatically impressed on me that my siblings were my responsibility, and if anything ever happened to them, it would be my fault.  This created an overwhelming sense of parental responsibility for my brother and sister that exists to this day.

All three of us experienced sexual and physical abuse during childhood, the details of which are unimportant here.  The abuse did not come from either of our biological parents.  The abuse is what life brought, we can’t go back and change it.

Abused children suffer through years of confusion over social issues. We seek definition of our self-worth from our outer world. It took all three of us years to come to terms with the abuse, and how it integrated into our personalities. Eventually, we became strong adults; but only after years of feeling inferior, self-degradation, denial, and finally acceptance that we cannot change our pasts. Once we figured that out, we all moved forward into true adulthood.

My body has been through more surgeries than many children born with severe handicaps.  My physicality and I seem to be constantly at odds, resulting in a klutziness that invades my whole persona. I’m the person who tosses a pen across the room as I’m gesturing through a conversation, spills a drink at least once a day, and wears her keyring through her fingers because otherwise, I’m picking them up every five minutes.  This body usually acquires a new Ace bandage, brace, or sling at least once a year. I had ovarian cancer in 1996, spinal meningitis in 2002, and esophagitis in 2009, all three of which tried to kill me.  I beat them all.

On the day after Christmas in 2003, I had gastric bypass surgery.  I weighed 328 pounds the day I went in for surgery, and now exist between 165-175 pounds. The burst of energy that accompanied the weight loss was completely unexpected to me. I was energetic before, but post-surgery, my energy exploded exponentially, and I began to seek more and more avenues to disperse it and satisfy my internal craving to create, to explore, to learn, and to be productive.

So you may read all this and think, “Oh, well, this all makes sense, no wonder she is a strong person.”  In truth, the one thing that strengthened me beyond normality is what happened to us on June 2, 1990.

Our young son, Aaron, had a seizure that night.  He stopped breathing, and as I was giving him mouth-to-mouth and Max was calling 911, his heart stopped beating under my hand. Paramedics came, our dog jumped through an open window barking at them, we were all screaming hysterically, they sent us out of the room, medical supplies flew in every direction, I don’t even know where our oldest son Travis was.....

The paramedics made us leave our home; told us to meet them at the hospital.  I never forgot walking to the car that night, seeing all of my neighbors standing there in those flashing red lights; their faces frozen in a simultaneous combination of fear, curiosity, and care. That whole night is frozen in my mind, even now, 22 years later.  The details never left me; I can close my eyes and see it all over again.  From the initial moment when I realized he was seizing till the moment the Life Flight helicopter took off, to arriving at Hermann and learning the black and dark prognosis the doctors gave us for Aaron’s future----this is a fixed point in my consciousness.

It took 28 minutes to restart Aaron’s heart, by which time he had significant brain damage. He was in PICU at Hermann Hospital in Houston for nine days. They ran all kinds of tests to diagnose which of his physical systems still worked.  They thought he could see, but not comprehend his vision. They decided he could hear, but not comprehend what he heard.  His involuntary systems stabilized; his blood pressure, heart, lungs, all still worked fine.  But, he had no muscle control; they kept him intubated because if they did not, his tongue would collapse into his throat, suffocating him. I remember thinking, “It’s OK; I can handle this, deaf and blind people survive all over the planet. It’s a different kind of motherhood, but I can handle it.”  I learned how to anoint his eyes so they did not dry out, feed him through a tube, and suction his saliva so he would not choke on it.  The first couple of days, when we approached Aaron’s bed and spoke to him, we saw a response in his blood pressure and knew he was still in there. But by the third day of his hospitalization, this was gone.

For nine days while Aaron was on life support, I felt God was holding his hand, just waiting for Aaron to be allowed to leave his physical vessel and step into heaven.  Because he had about 10% brain activity, we had to testify before an Ethics Committee for removal of his life support. On June 11, 1990, the tube was removed from his throat and Aaron went on to heaven to await our arrival.

Aaron’s death is the fire by which my subsequent personality is defined.  If you know me now, you know a very different person than that girl who existed before June 2, 1990.  I journaled every single day in the years after Aaron’s death. The first thing I wrote every day was “One Good Thing.”  I decided if I could find one good thing about every day, I would eventually find a reason to live.  Sometimes, my good thing was as basic as, “The sun was out today.” Those little nuggets of goodness were all that kept me going for a long time.

Eventually, of course, you just go on living.  It’s not like you really have a choice.  We had Travis to raise, we welcomed our daughter, Jennifer, two years after Aaron’s death, and we just kept on walking.  The weight of Aaron’s death never lightened, we just got used to carrying it.

I’ve often thought over the years,  “OK, God, losing Aaron was the worst thing that could ever happen. So, now we get a break, right?”  LOL!! Wrong assumption; adversity continues to intrude on our lives, and we continue to be tested.  But, I’m OK. I became a different person, survived, enjoy life and am grateful now for every second I get.  Now, you all know why my family is so very important to me. I missed time with Aaron, working long hours while my husband was the at-home daddy. I never want to miss another opportunity; these days, my philosophy is to say “yes” to any new experience. Any chance to be with my kids and grandkids, make a new friend,  experience a new event in the natural world, get to learn something new—anything that pushes the boundaries of  life, I accept with gratitude.

I’ve been told by friends that my optimism is overwhelming.  Now, you know why. It was a conscious decision to look for that one good thing.  Frankly, bitter and solitary would have been easier, but in my mind, it was a denial of the depth of love I felt for my son.  His life brought us such joy, I did not want his death to be futile. Turning away from the world minimalized his existence and our loss.

So, yes, I’m a strong person. I’m not bragging about it.  I sure as hell didn’t ask for any of this.  Life just is what it is.  But for those who may think that extroverted, ditzy, blonde exterior is the depth of me, maybe you can now understand the forces that guide me.  I’m not obligated to justify myself to anyone, but when close friends who knew all this previously give me admiration, I’m uncomfortable and feel obligated to explain the reasons to new friends.

I’m not a real private person, and I don’t seek attention, but for some reason, it just keeps coming and finding me.  Several events have brought my name before the general public this past year including rescuing a drowning kitty, writing about my favorite duck friend, and our recent and massive garage sale to pay our back taxes.  I don’t really care about the attention; I’m more concerned with doing the right thing for myself and my family.  I’m compelled to follow this path so I can be reunited with my son.

Without the “sour earth” of my childhood, I might have drowned in the depths of the emotional trials which have swirled through and around my life, tossing my heart around like a basketball, twisting my emotions until they are taut and at the breaking point.  That sour earth made me gave me a strong foundation; the continued tests just further toughen me.

In the end, I am more grateful for that sour earth than any other gift in my life but my children.  Without that sour earth, nothing that’s happened to me would have meaning, and I would not have the ability to learn from each situation that’s arisen. When we stop learning and growing, we die.

So, thank you again, Lord, for planting my seed in sour earth, and giving the me the capability to survive and still laugh about all of it!

For all those I love who love me back,
allison

Untitled Poetry 9-24-12

Your eyes impart your valuation of every person you meet.
Your appraisal hangs in dollar signs above their heads.
The only measure of your ruler
Which is warped beyond repair.

We are always a negative, a debit in your mind.
No words or actions could reimburse
To your satisfaction.
We don’t play the game you choose
Ranking by credit score the people we love.
So, you rank us as poor foolish souls.

Poor fools are we....
We give laughter more value than dollars.
Friends more worth than coins.

Craving the support you deny
Our hearts ache for your love,
For all you have lost
For all you have forsaken
For all those denied access to your heart.

Loneliness awaits your journey’s end,
Which you will relish
And present to outsiders as our abandonment.
But we recognize your true choice,
And know you only wish
You could been solitary sooner.

You will have your happiness...
In dollars
And revel blindly in your success
Until breath leaves your body.

Our greatest hope is then you comprehend
The honest depth of our loss
And genuine truth in our hearts
When we tried so hard to love you
Just for who you are
With complete disregard
For your bank account.

The Story Behind the Sale

It may seem cavalier, requesting help from my friends via Facebook about the financial problems we’re having now. In truth, I am really really scared.  Scared that the sale won’t be enough, scared that I won’t be able to make the tax payments, scared that I will let down my family. See, this is not the first time we’ve been here. After our son died in 1990 and Jen was born in 1992, I gave up a very good paying job to stay home with the kids and we let our house go.  Our kids were more important than the house, but we paid for that decision very dearly over the years. We worked very very hard to get the money to buy this house. Yeah, we could let it go or sell it now, but the truth is, there’s no place we could rent that wouldn’t be roughly the same price monthly as our mortgage.

This old house is nothing fancy, just a big old long 1950's style ranch house built in 1956, but we love it. After I’d lived here a month, I literally could not imagine living anywhere else.  This is HOME.

In June of 2007, after a series of catastrophic events, including a wreck that kept Max off work and on half-pay for 2 months, we filed for bankruptcy.  During our bankruptcy, which ended a year ago, our property taxes got way behind. We paid off every single dime we owed through that bankruptcy, with the exception of a few medical bills that the court dismissed, but there was not a single penny left over after each pay day.  Dissolution in bankruptcy was not an option, so for four years, we lived with them taking $1200 a month right off the top of our income. We lived hand-to-mouth for four long years; the least little mishap was financial disaster for us.

We paid off the bankruptcy a year early, still a point of pride with us.  But by the end, my van was in such poor condition, it was literally shedding parts as I went down the road and left puddles of transmission fluid every time I parked. Our Taurus had 100K+ miles on it; it was fine for me to use around town, but Max had to drive to Houston in it and so he got his new truck. We were fine paying that note.  I had a full-time job and we were making it and had even gotten to a point where we could put a little money back for a rainy day.  In fact, I recently had to order a credit report for a job, and you cannot imagine how satisfying it was to see OK every month we paid the truck note on time.  We made a down payment toward the property taxes and the county set us up with a payment plan.  We paid the down payment and one monthly payment; then at the end of December, I lost my job.

It wasn’t much of a job. It didn’t pay a whole lot and it wasn’t a real easy place to work, but it was a job, and I contributed to the household every week. There wasn’t a lot to put back to savings, but there was some, for the first time in four long years.  All of that is gone now. I wrote checks for the property tax payments every month, but I didn’t send them in because I knew those checks were going to bounce sky high. I walked through every day with this hanging over my head. Even at the height of a good time, like during our bi-annual art shows which I love, the thought would be in the back of my head, “I need to go take care of that. Maybe if I just take them $20 a month, they will accept that until we can make the full payments.”

But a kind of apathy takes you over when you enter a situation like this. If you, personally, have ever been in a disastrous financial place in your life, I know you understand. If you haven’t, God bless you. I wish I’d had the kind of life where there were no crises or drama or hospital stays or old worn out cars, but that was not the path God chose for me.

So, yes, I made a stupid mistake, and yes, it’s embarrassing and humiliating to admit that to everybody I know and their friends, but I did.  I admit it.  And now I’m trying to make good for my family, and I’m just blown away by  how my friends have come out of the woodwork to help, in ways I never imagined I even needed help. It’s not just about the money here; I just don’t want to let anybody down.  So, yeah, I’m scared of all of it...as well as incredibly grateful for the support I’ve been given by my friends. Because without that, my family will be homeless.

So, please pray for us, for resolution, for a successful fundraiser, and for my family to get a break.  I’m an impossibly optimistic person, and I know it’s all going to work out in the end.  But now, today?  I’m freaking terrified.

love to all those who love me,
allison

"Have A Great Night!" A peon's story....

08/16/12

First of all, right off the bat, this is a long blog.  But if you care about Jessica Plants or Allison Maxwell, please read it all the way to the end and share it with EVERYONE YOU KNOW.  I promise it is worth it.  It’s time for things to change.  Us “peons” have a voice and need to use it.

Our story begins.....

I lost my job at the end of 2011, and since that time, I’ve been doing some PRN (as needed) work for a company here in town.  For this story, you don’t really need to know what I do; all you need know is that we travel from Lufkin to Houston and our company rents us a car to go down there, and they rent from:

 ENTERPRISE RENT-A-CAR

Normally, we just make a day trip down there, leaving Lufkin about 6:00 a.m. and returning when we’re done. Depending upon the volume of work, we usually get home between 6:00 and 7:00 p.m.

Three trips ago, I made a trip alone because there wasn’t enough work for two people.  Enterprise gave me some little car, I can’t even remember what it was.  I’m traveling to the tax office in Spring, and the nearest freeway is I-45.  We usually go out Highway 94 from Lufkin, and take 19/30 to I-45, heading into Spring (which is now essentially integrated into Houston), and we exit at Cypresswood to get there.  As soon as I got to the 70 mph speed zone on Highway 94, the little car I was in started vibrating like one of those old-timey weight machines with the belts that “jiggled” all the fat off you–ROFL!  My arms were worn out by the time I got to Groveton, but I’d had some issues before with small cars catching the grooves on 94. I stopped in Groveton to rest my arms a bit because I was having to hold the steering wheel in a steel grip.

I went on and by the time I got to Trinity, realized there was something seriously wrong with that car.  Every time it got to 65 mph, it started shaking.  I was thinking a bunion on a tire, or it was out of alignment.  So, I stopped at a gas station in Trinity and called Enterprise’s 24-hour roadside assistance, using the 800 number on my contract.  Turned out Enterprise didn’t have an office in Trinity; and after being hung up on twice by their automated system, I was finally told, I could either wait there for the car to be towed and travel in the tow truck to the Huntsville office, or drive the car to the Huntsville office myself.  I’d already traveled in it for over an hour, but it was still before the Lufkin Enterprise office opened at 8:00 a.m.  Since it hadn’t blown a tire, I figured it was the alignment and told the brisk and scripted operator, “I need to get to Houston to get my work done, and you are not helping me, I’m leaving and I’ll call my local office when it opens.”  She answered, “So, you won’t require roadside assistance?”  I said, “No, I guess not since it’s not really of any help,” in what I’m sure would be considered a sarcastic tone. She replied, “Have a great day!”

I hung up without reply, resisting all of my inner compulsions.

Now, you have to realize something.....between Trinity and the outskirts of Houston, the highway department is doing major construction on I-45, but the speed limit for a considerable length of time before you reach the construction zone is 75 mph.  After you hit the construction zone, you are restricted to two lanes with a one foot shoulder on both sides, and those barrier walls that present a very finite and claustrophobic tunnel to drive through.  During this section, until you get to the Houston freeways, the speed limit is sixty-five.

So, I drove my little rental car from Trinity to Houston at sixty, because anything above that speed and the damn thing shook me to death; I could not hold it in the lane.  Got honked at by everyone.......and I do mean everyone...........especially once I got to the Houston area.  Fortunately, I didn’t get run over and got to the tax office about 8:45 a.m.  As soon as I was in line, I called my local Enterprise office and talked to one of the wonderful folks I rent from there.  I have absolutely NOTHING bad to say about those guys; I’ve been renting cars from them since 2005, and they have ALWAYS done right by me.  I’ve had to rent cars several times when the van broke down, and I almost always rent a car for long trips, and they always ALWAYS take good care of me.  I only live a half a block from their office.  In fact, during nice weather, I just walk down there to get my cars.

Once I spoke with Jose in the Lufkin office, he started calling and trying to find me another car. He called me several times that day with reports of his progress.  Unfortunately, there was NOTHING available in the Houston area.  Now, this didn’t really surprise me, although I think it might surprise some of my local friends who have never lived in Houston.  Wrecks are a fairly common occurrence there and rental cars are in high demand from folks having repairs done to their own vehicles.  So, Jose made arrangements for me to go to the Sears Auto Center near the Woodlands mall after I got done with my work.  Enterprise has an arrangement with Sears, and Sears would figure out what was wrong with the car and try to fix it.

As I was leaving the tax office and going through that 20 mph zone on Cypresswood, heading back to I-45, something clunked under the car.  I looked in the rearview and saw a big chunk of red bouncing across the road.  I thought I’d run over a brick, but as the red chunk hit the road, it burst into a million pieces and I realized it was some East Texas red mud.  I remember thinking, “Hunh, I wonder where the heck that came from?” but not really thinking much more about it.  Just a random chunk of mud I’d run over, but it did cross my mind that there is NO red mud in Houston like that we East Texans know so well during rainy times.  But that was about as much thought as I gave it...........at that moment.

Now, I have not lived in the Houston area since 1996. I don’t even remember if the Woodlands mall was in existence when I lived there. Trying to negotiate around that mall is like a maze within a puzzle wrapped in a fog if  you don’t live there.  FINALLY after about an hour, I found the auto center.  I met a really nice guy there with an oddball sense of humor almost as perverse as my own, and even met his fiancé during the hour or so I spent there.  They put the car up on the lift and when the guy came back, he was just shaking his head and laughing. I knew this was going to be good.

Turned out, when they got the car up on the lift, the undercarriage was completely coated in several inches of thick, gooey, dried, East Texas red mud.  It was a compact car and the weight of the mud was so bad, it had thrown off the alignment and that’s why the car was vibrating so bad. Even the backs of the wheel wells were full of mud. Whoever had the car before me had obviously SUNK that car in mud.  I called our Enterprise office, spoke with sweet Anna there and told her, and she knew exactly who’d had it and how this had happened. She did not go into detail, but I sensed she was upset.  I had no idea what was up; all I knew was that Sears cleaned the undercarriage, I got back in the car, hit I-45 and it was fine.  I had no problems the rest of the way home except for being incredibly disappointed in Enterprise’s “24-hour roadside assistance” which was clearly a crock of propaganda and sales hype they utilized just to rent out more cars and make more money from us little peons.

Since I’d rented from Enterprise so many times, I wasn’t really concerned over this incident.  The only complaint I ever had about any of their cars was that they always have really grabby brakes and it takes a bit of adjustment to get used to.  There was one car I didn’t like, the Toyota Yaris, but my reasoning behind that had nothing to do with Enterprise, but with the design of the Yaris with the speedometer in the middle of the dash, but at an angle to the driver.  Toyota, you really need to work on that one!

Rented another car from Enterprise for a work trip a couple of weeks ago and had no problems with the car at all.  The muddy car was just a bad memory—in my mind, a fluke in an otherwise flawless relationship with this corporation.  Because the problems that day were NOT with my local office, but with Enterprise’s quoted “24-hour roadside assistance.”  It’s not a 24-hour assistance if it’s not available when the office is closed, right?  Just my own humble opinion....

But tonight?  Tonight, Enterprise’s lack of responsibility and accountability for a faulty car put mine and Jessica’s lives at risk.  I can look back over the last few hours and think, THANK YOU LORD for protecting us here, and here, and here.  Tonight......Enterprise’s “24-hour roadside assistance” put our lives in danger, and I want EVERYBODY who cares about Jessica Plants and Allison Maxwell to know what happened to us.

We had a work trip planned for today and I went through the usual routine of a trip, picking up the car the night before, gassing it up, running by the store, and preparing all of our necessities for the next day’s work.  We sit in line down there for hours and have to take snacks, drinks, our paperwork, and something to occupy our minds while we wait.  Jessica and I are also doing some office work at night now, and we both left that job early last night because we were leaving at 6 a.m. today.  By the time I got the car, gassed it up, got our snacks, put all our paperwork, chair, and standing-in-line stuff in the car, it was after 10:00 p.m. last night.  This trip, Enterprise assigned us a Nissan Maxima.  They were out of compacts, so this one is a little bigger than the cars we usually get; wider, with a longer front end, and huge trunk.  It had a push button start, which I’m not particularly fond of (I forget about grabbing the keys), but overall, a pretty decent car.

I noticed when I drove the car to the gas station that the engine was really whiney.  For a woman who does not understand the intricacies of the combustion engine, it seemed to be working very hard to find the gears heading up to 40 mph. It made that whunh whunh whunh whiney noise cars make when the transmission doesn’t seem to be shifting properly, and when you braked, it downshifted harshly, like chug chug chug.  I didn’t pay attention last night to the RPM’s.  My own Taurus does this sometimes when it is cold and I thought, “well, the engine’s just cold, I left the house in a hurry and didn’t let it warm up properly.”  I even texted Jessica and told her I wanted her husband to listen to it before we left.

You know, it’s very hard to try to type car noises—lol!!  Anyway.......... life takes its own turns while we are planning for other things.

I could NOT get to sleep last night.  We’ve been working till midnight, but only for about a week and my internal clock is not acclimated yet.  It has always taken me some time to gear down from work and I’m not the spring chicken I used to be.  My clock is having trouble adjusting to this new schedule.  The last time I looked at the clock it was about 2:30 a.m.  Everybody I know recognizes I am just NOT a morning person.  But Jessica doesn’t live far away.  I knew I could slug down some coffee, get to her house, and let her drive down this time.  Usually, I drive down and Jessica drives home; it’s just what has evolved over the time we’ve been doing this job.  Jessica is half my age, but she is a responsible driver and I trust her.

Well, coffee wasn’t to be this morning.  I had the alarm set for 4:30 a.m.  Normally, it takes me about thirty minutes to get in gear, slug down my coffee, then I do my shower-shave morning routine.  I can leave my house at 5:45 a.m. and be at Jessica’s by 5:50 a.m.  Typically, I am a little early and end up waiting for her.  Lol—not today!!!  Since I’d not gotten to sleep till so late, my sleepy head just turned off the alarms on both my clock and my phone.  I’ve bashed alarm clocks before in my sleep and was really surprised to find it still intact when I got home tonight.  I woke up when Jessica called me about 6:10 a.m.  I just could not make the phone work!  I was so groggy I couldn’t figure it out, couldn’t find my glasses, and the dang thing was just being obstinate (in my mind).  When I looked at the clock I keep about 30 minutes ahead to fake out my sleepy mind, it read 6:40-something, and I bolted upright in bed because I realized how late it was. Jessica told me later she couldn't even understand me.  All I said was, “Oh shit, I overslept! Let me grab a shower and I’ll be there!”

I really and truly hate oversleeping, don’t you?  It just sets the whole day off on a strange kilter and I always feel like I’m spending that 12-15 hours of awake trying to catch up.  I’m a real stickler about being on time.  I get it from my parents, who are 30 minutes early for everything; to me, it is an insult to others to keep them waiting for me.  I took a rushed sponge bath with my hospital dry-bath stuff, tied my greasy hair back in a bun, powdered down for a humid Houston day, put the cold food in the ice chest, ran that out to the car, and headed for Jessica’s.  I didn’t even get my coffee because although I turned on the pot when I woke up.  The damn coffee maker died this morning.  When I pulled in Jess’ driveway, I turned off the car, got out as she was walking up, and said, “You’re driving!!”  I was so groggy it was ridiculous.  There was no way I could have focused on Lufkin traffic this morning, much less Houston’s network of frenetic auto arteries.

We stopped at the Exxon on Frank as we headed out Highway 94 and I finally got my MUCH needed coffee, Jess got a cup, and we headed for Houston.  About the time we got to Groveton, I remembered the problems with the car the night before and asked Jess if the car felt strange to her.  She said it had downshifted a little hard, but she didn’t hear the whining.  Of course, we had the a/c going at jet engine speed by then.  I don’t run the air in cars when I’m alone; my sinuses are chronically congested and the car a/c seems to makes it worse.  Jess never heard the whining, but she did comment on the downshifting.  But we got to Trinity with no problems, stopped for another coffee and headed to Houston.  Poor Jessica had to drive through the construction barricades this morning, which terrifies her.  :-(  She did good though and we got to the tax office a little before 10:00 a.m., only about an hour later than we usually do.

By the time we got to the tax office, I was awake and fully conscious.  We even found a good parking space, always an issue there.  It was a pretty good work day; after a couple of rough runs, we got a lot done with few extraneous issues.  We went through the tax line four times each and we had one extra which I ran through because Jessica ran the extra through last time.  We got done a little after 4:00 p.m.

The tax office is in the same building with the Harris County Sheriff’s office and a lot of those guys smoke.  While I was having a smoke break, I asked one of the 911 dispatchers how bad the rush hour traffic on I-45 was that far out.  They told me it was a parking lot till about 6:00 p.m.  Jessica and I have fallen in love in an Italian restaurant near the tax office, and it is the highlight of our day when we go down there.  Since we’ve both been job-hunting this year, a dinner out in a nice restaurant is a real treat for us.  I texted our boss and told her we were done and going to have dinner, but were not going to head out till 5:30 or 6:00 p.m. to avoid the rush hour traffic.  After a long day in the tax line, and since our predecessor in this job went through a horrific accident down there and is still recovering, we try to avoid those peak traffic times in Houston. They don’t make me nervous anymore like they used to, but it seems an unworthy extra risk.

Jessica and I killed about an hour having dinner and visiting http://www.thecreativeframer.com/.  I wanted to show Jessica a great bakery (Rao’s is the name of it, I think, AWESOME stuff).  Both shops are in the shopping center next to the tax office, but I got distracted by some absolutely awesome artwork in the Creative Framer windows and ended up going in, meeting some new artists, and finding out more about that shop.  I recommend all my friends visit their shop; it was a real treat.  I plan on figuring out a way to attend one of their Painting & Merlot nights!  Jessica came and found me.  Jessica was kind of down all day today and I could tell she did not feel well.  I said, “Come on, let’s get you home,” and we took off.

Traffic was still pretty heavy on I-45, but at the Woodlands almost all of it cleared out.  One thing I like about Houston is that it’s relatively flat and you can see the scattered afternoon showers when they come. There were showers all around us today.  Ya’ll know me, those clouds and showers were gorgeous.....I wanted my camera!  Jessica is interested in photography too, and so I grabbed the camera out of my bag and walked her through its instructions and she snagged some great shots!  I take a lot of shots in Lufkin when I’m driving, but photography from the driver’s seat in Houston traffic?  Not an option.

Scattered Showers

Losing the Traffic at Woodlands Parkway

After traffic cleared out at Woodlands Parkway, we got back to normal speed and headed on home.  About the time we hit the construction zone, the car started acting up.  It just would not stay in gear and a couple of times the RPM’s dropped to zero and I could feel it dropping speed.  Jessica noticed that the RPM’s were in the red zone when I accelerated.  The car felt like the transmission was not shifting into the proper gear.  Jessica and I have both been in older cars when the transmission went out.  Her car would only go in reverse when it went out and she had to back halfway around the loop to get home!  My van’s transmission went out going up the hill on Hackney; I was in Drive when the van started rolling backwards!  So, we are both well aware of what happens in a car when the transmission is not working properly.

I was in a 65 mph zone and could not get this rental car over 50, or the RPM’s went into the red zone.  There aren’t many exits in the construction area, so I had to put the flashers on and drive at 50 mph, hoping that the cars behind me doing 70 noticed in enough time to get over and around me.

Not much room for error here, especially with a faulty transmission. :-(

As soon as I could get off the road, I pulled over and stopped.  There weren’t any gas stations or fast food places or ANYTHING in that area, and I knew I could not just stop there.  We waited a bit, let the car cool down, and tried again.  We were getting close to Huntsville, where the speed limit is 75 mph, but the car would not go above 50 without sending the RPM’s up.  We were trying to get there because Huntsville is vastly more populated than where we were.  I told Jessica to call Enterprise “24-hour roadside assistance” on my phone.  I knew we were going to need help.  There was no way we could drive this car back to Lufkin.

Sigh............nothing, absolutely NOTHING, from this point on out should have shocked me, but it did.  American corporations are not personal anymore. Despite all of Enterprise’s commercials and ads about “24-hour roadside assistance,” I knew from my previous experience with the muddy car that this was not going to be pleasant.

In reality, I had no idea how UNpleasant it could actually get.

Jessica called “24-hour roadside assistance" and put it on speaker so I could talk to the operator.  (I do NOT talk on my phone while I'm driving, EVER.) First, of course, we had to wait on hold for at least 20 minutes with some of the most incredibly awful hold music I’ve ever heard.  It was so bad, we could not even figure out what it was supposed to be.  I’m laughing and joking about the music because when I get nervous, I crack jokes and find a reason to laugh.

I’m nervous and cracking jokes because the entire time we’re on hold, I’m driving at 50 mph through a 75 mph zone, watching 18-wheelers come up behind me, each time praying that I’d see a blinker go on and know they’d seen my flashers.  There’s no place to exit out there with some place for two ladies to stop safely.  We had to keep going.

FINALLY, a human comes on the line and begins reading her script.

“Are you in a safe place?”

Me:  “No, I’m trying to find one, we’re out in the middle of the woods.”  (At about this point, we were passing the Sam Houston monument.)

Script:  blah blah blah, they want the rental contract number, my name, that it’s a Nissan Maxima, and for some reason, the color of the car.

Jessica finds the contract number, I have to spell my name.  Seriously, is “Maxwell” THAT hard to understand? The operator called me Mackwell.  How many Mackwells do YOU know?  I verify the make of the car and that it’s dark gray.

Script asks again:  “Are you in a safe place yet?”

Me:  “I’m trying to get to one.”

We had spotted a Citgo station, exited I-45, negotiated the weird frontage road and were trying to get to the gas station.

Script:  “What is the problem with the car?”

I explain it to her and as we’re heading to the Citgo, suddenly the RPM’s drop to dead zero, and we’re only going 20 mph uphill to the gas station.

Me:  “I think the transmission is dead, it just dropped to 20 and won’t go up the hill.”

Script:  No answer.

Me:  “Hello?  Hello”

Once again, Enterprise "24-hour roadside assistance" has hung up on me.

I negotiate the car uphill to the Citgo and just as I get to the station, it dies completely.  Jessica and I look at each other, cause we know now.  This is BAD.

I get out of the car, light a much-needed anxious cigarette and call again.  Again, I am on hold with their computer roughly half an hour, listening to unidentifiable Muzak.  Seriously, I have NO idea what that music was.

Me, Jess, and our "trusty" rent-a-car

making the best of a bad situation

People are coming and going at the Citgo, giving me questioning looks.  I’m in a strange town, it’s about 7:30 p.m. by now and dark is rapidly approaching.  It was dangerous enough trying to drive the car home, now we were stuck in a relatively unpopulated place, at a kinda rundown gas station, in a town we don’t know, and we can actually see the lights from the prison from the parking lot.

Finally, as I’m watching a beautiful sunset and light rapidly disappearing from the sky, "24-hour roadside assistance" answers.

Script:   “Are you in a safe place?”

Script:  “What is your rental contract number?”

Script:  “What is the name on the contract?”  (Again.....how many Mackwells do YOU know?)

Script:  “Is this a Nissan Maxima?”

Script:  “What color is the car?”

Seriously?

The previous script had never even recorded our first call; we had to start all over from scratch.

Before even answering any of these questions, I asked Script to please record my phone number.  With each question, I said, “Let me give you my number because we’ve already been cut off once.”

Script:  “OK.  What color is the car?” or whatever question was next on their script.

Finally, I got the human on the other end to record and repeat back to me our my phone number.

After this, everything just went downhill so quickly, it staggered Jessica and I.  These are the choices I was offered:

Drive the car to the “airport.”  WHICH airport was never clarified; I assumed Huntsville had an airport, but in fact, that was not the airport Script was referring to because Huntsville does not have an Enterprise office at their airport.

Script wanted us to drive the car back to the HOUSTON airport, at least two hours behind us.  The road between Huntsville and the outskirts of Houston is relatively unpopulated, it’s getting dark, the car won’t go over 20 mph now, we have to travel back through the barricaded construction zone, possibly more rain storms, and wait at the Enterprise office at the Houston airport.  AND, if they have no cars available (which is highly likely) wait until a car is turned in, possibly tomorrow morning.

Me:  “Ma’am, this car is not working right, I am not driving it another foot.”

By this time, I’m f**king losing it.....Although I did not curse at Script (and that was a temptation hard to resist), I most definitely made sure they knew my patience no longer existed.

While I stay on the line with Script, I tell Jessica to call our boss on her phone.  I’m thinking the husband could come and pick us up, but payday is not till tomorrow and he needs gas.  I was going to tell our boss this, but then I remember, she can’t buy him any gas, because *I* have her credit card.  She always sends it with us to buy food and gas when we go down there.

Me:   “What other options do I have?”

Script:  “We can send a tow truck to tow you to the airport to get another car.  Or you can stay with the car and we’ll send the tow truck in the morning.”

I have to think about this one for a minute.  Hunh?  Seriously??

Me:  “I beg your pardon?  We can wait till morning for the tow?  Do you want us to sleep in the car?”

Script:  “It’s up to you ma’am, you can drive the car to the airport, be towed to the airport, or we can tow the car in the morning.  Which do you choose?”

Honestly, I was so incredibly flabbergasted at the choices, I didn’t even have an answer for Script.  At this point, Script wants to know EXACTLY where we are.  I walk inside the store, still with the phone on speaker, and get the address from the very young male clerk.  As he gives it to me, I repeat it to Script.

Script:  “Thank you, Ms. Mackwell, do you want another car in the morning?”

Me:  “No, I’m going home, why would I need another car?”

Script:  “So, do you need another car in the morning?”

Me:  “No, ma’am, I’m going HOME.”

Script:  “So you need another car in the morning?”

Me, after a hesitant moment of silence that REALLY wanted to explode into profanity:  “No.”

The young man at the Citgo, Reed (we’re on a first-name basis by now), looks at me with the same disbelieving look I feel on my own face.  I walk back out to the car.

Script:  “Ms. Mackwell, what do you want to do?”

Me:  “Hold on, let me talk to my boss.”

Jessica has been on the phone with our boss, repeating Script’s choices to her as the conversation progressed.  I can actually hear my boss’ incredulity in her silence.  Then my boss says something I can’t hear.  Jessica turns to me and says, “She is coming to get us.”

Me:  “Come and get the car, our boss is going to pick us up.”

Script:  “Thank you, Ms. Mackwell.  I hope you have had a pleasurable experience and 24-hour roadside assistance has satisfied your needs.  Have I answered all your questions?”

Jess and I just looked at each other with our mouths hanging open.  Simultaneously, we both answered with a resounding NO!

Script:  “Have a great night!”

OK, if you were in this situation, in that place, abandoned by the company you had relied on to get you home, what the eff would YOU say after a statement like that?  Me and Jessica have a common and perverse sense of humor—I hung up and we burst into laughter!

About three seconds after this call, Script called me back wanting to come and get the car NOW. Huntsville is about two hours from Lufkin and our boss’ arrival and I asked Script to please tell the wrecker to wait, because literally, they were stranding us on the side of the road, at a gas station, nearly in the middle of nowhere.

Script:  “I’m sorry, Ms. Mackwell, but I cannot schedule the wrecker for two hours from now.”

Me:  “Whatever.”

Script had some more to say after this, but honestly, I didn’t hear another word.  I’d been working since 6 a.m., on less than three hours sleep, and had realized I was dealing with a corporation that didn’t give a rat’s ass about our safety or needs, and the only answer that came to mind was:

“Whatever.”

At 8:41 p.m., I got a computerized call from the wrecker telling me they would be there at 9:15 p.m., which was roughly the time the wrecker arrived.  The driver felt terrible, and we had a great laugh about “Have a great night!”  We got our stuff out of the car, opened our chairs, and watched as he hooked up the wrecker.  He was just another peon like us, trying to do his job. He said he felt bad about leaving us there, but we reassured him that our boss was on her way.  By this point, we were expecting her any minute. The driver hooked up the rental car, and asked once again if we were going to be OK. We reassured him our boss was on her way, and he wished us good luck, we had a good laugh over “Have a great night!” again, and he took off.

buh-bye!

We opened our tax line chairs, and I couldn’t help it.  “Did we answer all your questions? No! Have a great night!”  Jessica and I will never again be able to say those words without laughing.

In conclusion...........Enterprise Rent-a-Car 24-hour roadside assistance?  Non-existent.

Script (the corporation)’s sincerity about caring for their customers? Non-existent.

Enterprise Rent-a-Car’s 24-hour roadside answer to a dying transmission in one of their rental cars?  Leave two defenseless women on the side of the road at a gas station in a strange town in their folding chairs in the dark surrounded by their personal items.

Enterprise Rent-a-car 24-hour roadside assistance?

Talk about an oxymoron..............

Now that you’ve read our story............if you care about Jessica Plants and Allison Maxwell...........go tell every single person you know.  It’s way past time us “peons” started being treated like humans again.

I couldn't help it, my last text of the night? to Jessica and my boss, "We've shared a unique and bonding experience....Have a great night!"

Me and Jess, stranded at the roadside...

But not completely alone, we made lots of new friends. :-)

Stranded at the roadside, just us and our tax line snacks and precious leftover pasta--ROFL! you gotta laugh at this stuff, because if you don't, your head blows up.








These?  These are the lights from the prison, just down the road. But thinking it's only the minimum security unit, no razor tape, just barbed wire, so we're OK, right?

According to Enterprise and their renowned "24-hour assistance" of course we are!

hmmmmm.....rust stains on the pavement? or blood stains? 

I'm not telling..........