Life Blog - By Morgan Unger

 My good friend and I made the five-hour trek to Burlington, N.C. this weekend. It may not sound familiar to you, but to us, the city where our boyfriends live is pretty close to Heaven on Earth.

The weekend went off without a hitch before our short time had run out and we had to begin our journey back to Huntington.

My friend was on the phone, driving and I was silently sitting in the passenger seat looking out the window when I heard the following:

“Ba bump, Ba bump, Ba bump, Ba bump bump bump bump bump bump.”

We looked at each other, eyebrows raised, and pulled over alongside interstate 74. It was 10 o’clock, dark and we had an extremely flat tire.

I considered trying to change the tire myself, but let’s be honest, the iron-pumping has fallen to the death grip of as deadlines and due dates. I’m a weakling and the chances of my loosening or tightening tire lug nuts were slim.

I pulled out my trusty AAA card, we’re on a first name basis, and dialed the emergency roadside service digits, answered the preliminary questions and felt my jaw drop when it came to the most important one – where were we? I had absolutely no idea. Okay, I had a rough idea, but not nearly enough of one to describe to a completely strange AAA operator where to send a trusty mechanic. We were on the phone for probably 20 minutes trying to pinpoint our location. We finally just gave it our best guess and resolved ourselves to waiting. In the dark. Along the interstate. At night. Completely stranded and defenseless.

Terrible scenarios started running through my head. What if we had given the AAA people the wrong location? They would never find us! What if someone just pulled up behind us, someone who wanted to hurt us, or worse. We couldn’t go anywhere. We were practically a tricycle, a sitting duck. My heartbeat sped up, I held back tears and experienced a slight emotional breakdown.

Just then, but the grace of God (and I mean that quite literally) Sergeant Starbuck from the Surry County Sherriff’s Department pulled in behind us, lights blazing, setting our fears to ease. We were saved.

He changed our tire for us. We had to drive back to Burlington to stay the night so that we could get our tire fixed early Monday morning. We were exhausted, goofy-tired, but we were safe.  

It’s hard to say what would have happened if it weren’t for Mr. Starbuck. Maybe everything would have been found. AAA would have found us. But maybe everything wouldn’t have been okay. I prefer to consider it my own mini-miracle.

Thank you to all the Sergeant Starbucks in the world. You have no idea how much good you do. 

Marshall Parthenon