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To say that the last few days at AAA have been busy due to severe snow weather is an understatement.

Had one young lady who was very lucky the other day. She wanted a 50 mile tow when we were lucky to get five miles out of some stations. Worse the ticket came in saying she was between Xenia and Jeffersonville Ohio. I love sending tow truck drivers to search a 20 mile area which includes another county which is out of my jurisdiction. She was by an overpass but unable to identify it. Big mistake there. A guess was made by someone that she was by I-71 and off to another club we go.

About an hour later I have a very agitated AAA representative on the phone demanding I send a truck to find her as their contractor went to I-71 with no success.

Now there are ways to ask and demanding isn't one of them. He insists they are in Jamestown.

I enquire why I-71 is listed as the mysterious overpass then - a nagging memory of that cursed interstate which I own a mere three miles of for Greene county and a sense there is a good chance she is in my area just further up the road. However Mr. Attitude makes the mistake of throwing his weight around by telling me I-71 is Jamestown and I better hop to it.

Oh really!! Jamestown is about seven miles from there. Someone needs a chill pill and glasses for map reading.

A hammer falls gently as I sight my imaginary gun off into space. It had been an awful day and I decide I want this fellow's supervisor to request a lesson in manners. A tense customer service rep is good for little except getting members stirred up.

Mr. A informs me he is the manager.

I'm unimpressed. I'm there on overtime and would rather be home.

I coldly ask him if he's looked at a map. The idiot says he had.

All velvet gloves come off and my contempt is punishable in a kangaroo court as I inform him I've a map right in front of me and guess where Jamestown isn't?!

He sputters and nothing gets accomplished. Finally a key fact gets mentioned. The young directionally challenged one has passed Jamestown.

Well that's better I'll work on it and we both hang up on each other. He doesn't dare complain about me because he hadn't done his homework in the most elementary degree. I ask Jeannie why all mangers from other clubs have attitudes all the time when they are wrong when a simple please and thank you gets the job done so much better.

I then call Ms. Lostlamb and we chat a bit. I make a guess where she might be. I was wrong by five miles. Turns out she made it to Xenia when we found her but she grumped at my driver for daring to ask for more directions. Ms. Lostlamb never considered she wouldn't be the first person we haven't found with bad directions I've terminated the hunt for until a landmark or mile marker is provided. Not me that's lost to paraphrase Julia Roberts from Pretty Woman.

That was the highlight of my weekend.

Other then spinning out TWICE on the highway going home Friday night and surviving. Who says there isn't a God??!!

But tonight an event occured that superseded any venial joy at annoying supervisors.

A gentleman had a box truck stuck in the Synder Park parking lot in Springfield today. He was not a AAA member but his lady friend was. He went to the park almost every day to feed the ducks. He would watch a TV show each week with the lady and he was a gentle presence in her life.

The call came in around 4:30 pm but was put on hold awaiting some information. Around 7 pm it came to us and miraculously in about a half hour we were almost there.

Except we were too late. The lady called us in tears. He had not been answering his cell phone for her (or us). He was found dead of a heart attack in his truck. He was probably gone before the call ever was dispatched.

There is something almost sacred about the loss of a human being who was doing something as simple and caring as worrying over some birds. At first glance when the call came in we joked and laughed about it. Feeding the ducks--in THIS weather. Oh my. Becomes very majestic when it's your last act on earth. I hope my end will be as glorious.

God is still good.

In all my years here (going on 19) I have had drivers shot at, and yes--killed in traffic but never a member. I feel strangely old now and past my prime. This will pass as all things do.