Call Me Poocho

So as I drove north on I-4 today, rolling back into Central Florida, Alanis Morsette was on the radio and I was singing at full throat with “Head Over Feet” pretending Alanis and I were singing it together to our Savior.  I passed the Lake Mary exit because I still had a book-on-tape from Cracker Barrel and I needed to return it in Sanford.  Just as I passed my hometown exit, I heard a terrible clunking coming from the back-right fender of my Mazda pickup.  The tread on that tire had been low for a while and it had finally blown.  I pulled calmly to the shoulder and called the troops at church to come rescue me.  My brother, Ben, was on his way pretty darn quick.

Ben went to our parents’ house to get my Dad’s floor jack so we could change the tire.  Meanwhile I started figuring out how to get the spare tire out from under the bed of the truck.  I was about half way through this task when a big white pickup with “Road Ranger” painted on the door pulled up behind me.  A man in his early thirties got out and asked if I was OK, and jumped right in to help.  He told me to start loosening the lugnuts as he got out his super-mega-jack brushing the small unit that came with my car aside.

I labored for a while on the first lugnut.  Once I got it, the friendly Road Ranger said, “Here let me show you a trick so you don’t break your back.”  He positioned the lug-wrench so he could step on it with his foot to loosen the nut.  Once we got the shredded tire off, I stepped in like the man who needed no help (although I had obviously needed it) and tried to place the spare tire on the axle.  I had some trouble and gingerly surrendered the tire to my Ranger friend.  He used a cool Road Ranger trick and had the tire on in seconds.  Then he screwed on four lugnuts in the time I did one.

After the whole ordeal was wrapped up (my friend helped me so fast that Ben never even had to find me on the side of the road), I thanked the Road Ranger as sincerely as I could, extended my hand for the shaking, said my name was Jacob and asked him his.  He said, “Call me Poocho.”

I loved the way Poocho helped me.  He stopped of his own volition, he never made me ask for help.  When I jumped up to help myself he let me go ahead, and only after I made it painfully apparent that I needed assistance did he offer it, and in such a way that I never lost my manly, tire-changing dignity.  Poocho brightened my day.  I hope I get to help someone some day and that when I do I’ll have the grace to help in such a way that maybe, just maybe, that person that I help will “call me Poocho”.