1. A Jeep Out of Gas
When the light turned green, the geezer found himself behind a Jeep SUV that had run out of gas. A twenty-something driver was pushing and steering, trying to get his vehicle thru the intersection.
The geezer changed lanes and drove around and then pulled into the next driveway. He walked back to the intersection, where the twenty-something driver was pushing his Jeep slowly along the feeder road. The geezer offered to help push, but just then a woman in another Jeep pulled in front and offered user hers to push his.
“I have a blanket,” she said.
“That’s great, thanks a lot,” the twenty-something guy said.
2. Pushing Jeep #1
The woman in Jeep #2 drove off so she could pull up behind Jeep #1. It was a long loop, and it was going to take her a while to come around again.
“I’m good,” the twenty-something guy said to the geezer, but then he started to push again.
So the geezer pushed, too, wearing his mask from the other side of Jeep #1. A thirty-something guy walked up and began pushing from the back. Jeep #1 started rolling quickly, and the three of them began running as they pushed.
The sun was bright. The heat of the day was beginning to rise. The geezer was wearing a black shirt and panting beneath his mask until he yanked it off (being safely distanced from either of the two maskless *-somethings). His breathing fell into a cadence. His thighs started burning.
“Let’s push harder and maybe I can coast,” the twenty-something guy said.
“Harder!” the geezer thought to himself. There was no harder in him. This was as much as he could muster.
When they came to a driveway… the guy didn’t turn in!
“I’m just going to go down to the Shell station,” he said.
3. Jeep #2 Arrives
Problem was, even though they had now pushed Jeep #1 a quarter mile, the gas station was another quarter mile away.
“What have I gotten myself into?” the geezer wondered. Thoughts of his unlocked car with its windows down began to swirl in his head.
Just then, the woman in Jeep #2 arrived. The geezer and thirty-something stepped away, and the woman slowly pulled up and began pushing Jeep #1.
The thirty-something guy hopped in a car which his wife (?) had been driving slowly with emergency flashers blinking to protect the three of them. The geezer turned to walk back to his car, more than a quarter mile back down the feeder road.
4. Yay-Boo Epilog
His car was still there when he got back.
But when he finally made it to the farmer’s market there were no more eggs. Boo! But there were still plenty of peaches. Yay!