And sometimes...

And sometimes there are a Frank and a Will just when you need them.

I was driving along early in the morning, that quick dash to get ahead of a busy day
and then a thunk and a steady drumbeat not coming from the radio and the messy rumble of a flat.
I limped the car along to a side street, pulling into a lot full of truck trailers. I was only about a mile from home and considered for a minute riding on the flat. In the lot, I saw a tent tucked in between some cars and trucks and a dog tied up in front of the tent. He eyed me and I eyed him back. 

I wish I could say I knew how to change a tire. There was that one keystone cop-ish time I tried to help my husband as we both bumbled about, tangling with lug nuts that just didn't want to let loose.
So it remained on that back burner to-do list: "learn at last to change a tire!!" like "learn more Italian" and "reorganize the kitchen drawers," those items that somehow never quite make it to the top of the list but should.

I called home and then I remembered my husband was out talking a walk. I was about to call Triple A when two guys  pulled into the lot. They were heading into work, cheery as anything on an early Sunday morning. Before I could say a word, the man who later introduced himself as Will said, "Got a flat?" and his buddy Frank said, "We'll change it for you."

Turns out, Frank said, I ran over a long thin wrench that was lying in the road. It wedged in and tore a massive hole in the tire. "Would ya look at that!" he said. "What are the chances?" It took some doing to get it out.

And of course the spare was flat; happens all the time they said; the spare loses air waiting around in the trunk. They filled the spare with air; they pulled off  the flattened tire and got the spare on. I had seven dollars in my purse. I said I would be back with more. They didn't even want to take the seven dollars.

"Nah," Frank said. "We like helping people. It's what you do, you know?"