Moving On, Thankfully

It’s been an absolute whirlwind of a week. Our daughter and her boyfriend had agreed with their landlord that if he could find a tenant by the end of August, they would move out early and not have to pay September rent, and live with us for a couple of months while they looked for work closer to home. Which was all fine and good, but the landlord called them on TUESDAY AFTERNOON to tell them he’d found a tenant. And so it began. First thing, finding a rental moving truck on the busiest end of the month/long weekend/students returning to university in Canada. After several calls and being told that nothing was available, we managed to get a truck in a city on the way to their apartment, which was around 4 hours away from us. Second thing, figuring out the driving—Ken would drive the truck back, Kate’s boyfriend would load up his vehicle with boxes, and Kate and I would drive her car back. We got to their place at 4 pm on Wednesday and started frantically packing. Ken and I had a hotel room for the night, and we got up early to go back and finish. By noon on Thursday, the entire place was cleared and Ken was on his way in the moving truck, having taken a head start since he would have to drive more slowly. I’m no use with heavy lifting thanks to my bad shoulder, so I spent the time packing up the kitchen and cleaning the apartment.

By 1 pm on Thursday, the landlord ( a very nice man) came, oohed and ahhed at how clean everything was (YOU’RE WELCOME, CHILDREN) and we were on our way. Or were we???

45 minutes outside of the city we’d just left, we were in heavy traffic when an alarm sounded…

Me: The car says it’s turned the air conditioning off because the engine is very hot!
Kate: Weird. I’m sure it’s fine. It’s a hot day and we’re just crawling along. Put down the windows.

2 minutes later…

Me: The car says the engine is overheating and to switch to idle!
Kate: We should pull over.

The car was toast. And there we were, alongside the busiest highway in Ontario, transport trucks zipping by, almost 4 hours from home. I called our roadside assistance:

Me: I need some help. Our car has broken down on the 401 West.
Dispatcher: We’ll send someone out. Under your plan, the driver can tow you up to 10 kilometres—every additional kilometre will be $4.50. He will be there in approximately 132 minutes.
Me: WHAT?

And this is when I went into full blown panic mode. And for me, that doesn’t mean freaking out externally—it means I go into complete silent shutdown. How the f*ck were we going to get home? I was too upset to even cry. Then I got a text message that the driver was on his way, and that he would actually be there in 30 minutes. We could track him in an app and sure enough, he arrived in under 30. When the driver, a really young guy, looked at the car, he shook his head and said he couldn’t tell what was wrong, like maybe we needed oil or maybe it could be more complicated, like a part. We checked the nearest garages on google maps, and they were all over 10km away. I’d resigned myself to paying the extra charge to get towed to a repair shop, Uber to a car rental, and do the 4 hour drive another day for the car, when suddenly the driver said, “Hey—if you call right now and ask to upgrade your plan to Premium, I can tow you all the way home if it’s under 320 km.” AND IT WAS 297.4 KM. I immediately called and paid for the upgrade, and we were on our way, Kate in the tow truck passenger seat and me in the back on a bench seat with no seatbelts, but he assured me that “it was safe.”

And you know what? It was a long drive but we had a great time. He stopped at a roadside service centre for a bathroom break and snacks, we made fun of personalized license plates that we saw on the road, and he played very cool techno music. He got us home in under 5 hours (the traffic going through Toronto was horrifying) and dropped us and the car at our literal door. I gave him a huge tip, rest assured, and then Kate and I both collapsed into the arms of our loved ones.

So while this post might not be as funny as usual, and maybe not even funny at all, it’s full of gratitude for the guy who drove us almost 300 kilometres and then had to drive back home himself. And yes, he said it was fine because he got paid by the hour, but he could have just towed us to a garage and left us there to figure it out. He didn’t, and for that I’m truly thankful.

40 thoughts on “Moving On, Thankfully”

  1. Come to think of it, I went wrong in life by telling people I used to drive fire trucks at work, and now, whenever someone needs a moving truck, I get roped into driving it for them. Oh well, I still get free snacks and coffee.

    I’m glad that everything worked out and you were able to get home safely.

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  2. I love this story. Last December, shortly after Christmas, my son and I delivered a black Lab to my sister in Springfield Massachusetts from Toronto. The dog is a long story. After getting thru Buffalo the transmission on my son’s Dodge just died. The engine whirred wonderfully, but we just stopped on the NY Turnpike, Rt 90 East. Pulled over in pitch pouring rain, looking for mobile service. Short story…a State Trooper came to our rescue, called a tow truck, who brought us to Enterprise Rental Car and a Transmission mechanic (the car was toast, and the mechanic bought it for parts from my son), and we delivered a lovely dog to my sister.

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  9. It’s such a relief when tow truck drivers turn out to be good, even interesting people because whenever we need them it’s always an awkward situation. Maybe they’re naturally nice because everyone is grateful to see them, or maybe they’re just happy to deal with nice people. I rode over an hour with a tow truck driver once. We had a long talk about his favorite movie, “Scarface”. He was a much nicer guy than you’d think from that.

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