If you run out of gas on the prairie

If you leave your house in a hurry on a Monday morning after a long holiday weekend with a full cup of coffee and three happy kids in your mini van and then back into your garage door because it had not opened all the way, it is going to be a long day. Even though you could not see the top of the garage door had opened all the way because it was open in your rear view mirror but regardless it is now so bent up that you cannot get out of your garage. You have three kids that need to get to three different places and you have to start your work day. You smile and are thankful for your husband who leaves work to come home and miraculously gets the van out of the garage through the next stall. All kids get to where they need to be. They are healthy and happy. Again, you smile. Deep breath. It is all okay. You do your morning routine of phone calls, quick pack your bag and computer, stop by Gma’s house to feed your baby and head out of town. You quickly drive to your husband’s office to drop off the infant car seat base and leave to drive 180 miles to get to your meeting. Distracted by emails on your phone, texting and talking, you leave with out filling up your gas tank. You are drinking your second mug of coffee and hurriedly talking on your phone, knowing you will soon reach the dead zone of prairie cell phone land. And only when you have no phone service, only the open road and XM Holiday Traditions radio do you realize…

you are in the middle of the prairie with no gas to keep going much further on your journey

with hills and cattle as far as the eye can see but no gas stations anywhere for miles and miles and miles.

So if you are going to run out of gas on the prairie, first be thankful it is 45 degrees outside on the 30th of November and not -20 and a blizzard. Then drive to the top of a hill and try not to laugh, cry and yell all at the same time.

Laugh, hold back your tears of being frazzled on a Monday and hope you now have cell phone coverage to reach your only hope of not being stranded.

If you run out of gas on the prairie and can reach him on his cell phone, this guy will drop what he is doing and drive and drive until he finds you with 10 gallons of gasoline to get you to where you need to be. And if you have gas fumes that keep your motor running, you can always turn back around, drive south along the desolate prairie highway to Lehr.

There in Lehr you will find this man waiting for you to fill up your tank along with a free cup of coffee.

And he takes donations to cover the cost of free coffee which he got from me today. He takes checks for the gasoline, smiles and tells you to have a good day.

Indeed I did have a good day. The sun was shining. My coffee was hot. And I had a full tank of gas with nothing but open road to drive.