Adventures!

I know it's been a while since I blogged, but this story is entirely too much of a comedy of errors not to share.

So last week, from Thursday to Sunday, Sze, Kaylee, and I converged with my entire immediate and most of my extended family upon Alabama. We three Huis were driving, so we spent most of Thursday in the car, winding through the mountains of Tennessee and Virginia along I-81. Kaylee, I would like to note, is a total trooper and didn't really even fuss until we were maybe an hour from our destination.

We spent the remaining three days in a WHIRLWIND of family and friends I've known since birth. It was wonderful to be with everyone and to share Kaylee's first Easter with this group of amazing people. We were incredibly sad to leave on Sunday when we began our journey home.

As I was saying our goodbyes to my church family and trying to get Kaylee loaded back up into our old '94 Taurus, I overheard Sze asking my grandfather for directions to I-20. I-20? I thought. Doesn't that take us through Atlanta? I hate Atlanta! Sure enough, Sze had decided to bet on the NCAA championship and the fact that it was Easter to give us a clear path through one of the largest cities in the country. Strangely enough, his gamble was a good one, in many more ways than one.

Despite our fairly late start, we were making very good time. My brother, Matt, was riding with us on the way home, so we had three drivers to rotate through instead of two. We cruised along until it was my turn to drive, between somewhere in South Carolina and Charlotte, NC. After a couple of hours, I started getting really tired, and Matt recommended we pull off to trade shifts. I stopped at the red light at the end of the ramp and noticed the car starting to roll backward.

Automatics don't roll backward.

I threw it into park and back into drive, thinking I had somehow slipped the car into neutral inadvertently. No dice. The light turned green and I lurched away from the line, only the have the engine stall out.

Automatics don't stall out. This is BAD.

We limp into the parking lot of the BP station right off the interchange. Matt shifts uncomfortably in his seat.

"Uh, sis? You're smoking big time." Sure enough, smoke was billowing from beneath the hood of the car. OhnoIbrokeitOhnoIbrokeitOhnoIbrokeit I mutter in a panic. We pop the hood and Sze busies himself with trying to determine the problem. It seems we're low on transmission fluid, so I go inside to buy a quart from the convenience store. That's odd.I think. We just had the car inspected Sunday. Don't they usually top off the fluids? I come back outside and notice a huge puddle of something dark and kind of nasty looking under our car.

"Szeeeeeeeeeee? I think we have a leak."

At this point, all three of us are uttering unprintable obscenities. Good thing Kaylee was asleep!

Enter the strangers, stage right. He is of medium height, with cracked glasses held together with scotch tape and shoulder length dreads, wearing the universal uniform of a waiter. She is short and round, with a frizzy shock of dyed orange hair pulled haphazardly away from her face.

"Y'all need some help?" he drawls. "I know a thing or two 'bout these old Fords." Sze runs through the problem, and the guy, coincidentally named Lucky, of all things, offers a flashlight so we can get a better look. Matt gets partially under the car as Sze starts pouring in the transmission fluid I bought.

"You better just stop, Sze. It's pouring straight through."

I think it was at about this point when Sze realized that, due to our taking a different route home, we were a little over an hour from his parents' house. Talk about some luck, huh? He calls the, and they start of the road to rescue. We were not about to give up, though! We shall prevail!

Optimism's so cute, isn't it?

Enter stranger number two. He more stumbles than swaggers, his features dominated by a green baseball cap and enormous, crooked teeth.

"Whatchy'all got goin' awn hee-urr? Imma fawurd mechanic when I ain't wurkin' at the applebees rite down ovah thur." He poured his words out without stopping for breath.

"The car's leaking transmission fluid something awful," Sze volunteers.

"Now whatchy'all need ta do is ta git yew some lukus. Ell-yoo-kay-yoo-ess LUKUS. It'll cost yew 'bought 7.99 or 8.23 with tax and it'll stop that thur leak right up real fast. Now yew jist go down to the Wal-Mart and git you some Lukus! Ell-yoo-kay-yoo-ess. And you wanna put it in while the car's runnin', now, and it'll fix that thur leak up real quick. Now, y'all's gonna want to git the car fixed within 'bout a week, but it'll git you home, that's for sure. Now make sure you git you some LUKUS." He stopped for a ponderous breath. "And a funnel, while you're at it."

Lucky and Jenn, who are still around helping us, pipe up. "We can take you to the Wal Mart. It's just down the street." Matt, Sze, and I look at each other with no small amount of trepidation. I mean, these people had been nothing but friendly and helpful, but man, that's how you end up on the 6:00 news, you know? Besides, someone had to stay with Kaylee, who was still sleeping peacefully through the mayhem. Matt straightens his spine and says, "I'll go."

While we waited for Matt's return and the elder Hui's rescue mission, a third set of strangers arrived in a positively monstrous pick up. He swings down with a classic cowboy swagger, his sidekick and waifish arm candy in tow.

"You havin' car trouble?" Why no, sir. We're just sitting here with the roof of our car open and hemorrhaging transmission fluid for fun. We'll be up and running in no time. My inner harpy thought. I nod and smile. "Y'all got a flashlight? I'm a Ford mechanic."

What IS this? The twilight zone of car guys? Not to all readers: If you ever decide to break down in an American car, do it in Concord, NC.

Back to the action. I realize that Matt has left with the flashlight, and so I go about antagonizing every single person at the gas station for one. No dice. How is this possible! Everyone carries a flashlight in their car! Seriously? Mr. Cowboy struts off to get his Marlboros and Natty Light as we wait for the return of Matt with the LUKUS. After a while, I get nervous and call him.

"Matt, the well meaning but kind of odd strangers didn't cut you up and eat you, did they?" I ask.

"No, we're actually within sight of the BP. The Lukus cost more than 7.99. I thought I had the wrong thing at first. We'll be there in a minute."

As promised. he emerged victorious with his bounty, and we go about trying to fix the car. Ready.... steady.... and it totally didn't work. Blast. The good news is, we had a flashlight now that another kind stranger had given us! Hurray! Mr. Cowboy and company emerge and he offers to take another look.

"Y'all've got a cracked seal. There ain't no way you can fix that here, and it ain't gonna get you to High Point neither. You're gonna have to get that towed."

You have GOT to be kidding me. We are completely defeated. Then Sze's eyes get really wide.

"Oh crap, guys."

"What?" We say.

"We could have broken down on 81." And with that, our troubles are put into major perspective.

After a rather frantic search for a phone book (What kind of gas station doesn't have a phone book, funnel, or flashlight? Tell me this!) we call a transmission shop with free towing and arrange to have the car pulled away. Sze's parents arrive and we load all of our stuff, including the still blissfully snoring Kaylee, into their van to head to High Point.

There's only one problem. It's Sunday. Sze has to work Monday. We're still 5 hours from Richmond, and it's almost 11:00. Oh boy. We take Sze's parents home, thank them profusely for their help, and pile into the borrowed minivan to head back to our house.

The thing is, the electronics on the van don't quite work. This is all well and good, except that the dashboard lights don't work. So, every few minutes or so, Matt, who was driving, would say, in his best World Series of Poker voice, "Light me" and Sze would use our newly acquired flashlight to illuminate the speedometer so Matt could make sure he wasn't speeding. Trust me, at 2:00 in the morning, this is the funniest thing in the WORLD.

We finally stumble into our apartment at about 3:45, all completely ready to fall down from exhaustion. And thus ended the longest, most ridiculous night ever.