My mother tells me last night that she's decided to sell her car.
I was initially against her doing so, given the fact that we gifted it to her so she would have a way to move about, but the truth is that there are other pressing needs, and thus, it's an asset we can use.
She tells me to be ready early, since we would be traveling to the city.
I slept like a baby, and when the morning came, I felt completely ready to head to the concrete jungle.
Around nine, my mom tells me the buyers are soon to arrive and that I should get anything I needed done within the next half hour. I rushed into town, got some food for our pups and ourselves, and waited.
The typical dance that happens when one tries to sell a car followed.
At least in Ecuador, people usually tell you a sob story when they try to buy a car from you. I mean, the story could be true, but over time you learn to expect it, and, up to a point, not be too moved by them.
In this case, the would-be buyer had a special-needs son, and thus he needed the car badly.
After agreeing to an amount over the phone, he of course proceeded with the typical vulture analysis, walking around the car while his companions offered opinions filled with concern.
Look at this scratch here.
Oh, the rim on this side doesn't match.
Oh, it's going to need more paint than I imagined.
Nothing out of the ordinary.
After a short huddle, they came up to my mom and offered a whopping thousand dollars less than what she had agreed to.
She, of course, with a smile on her face, told them to forget about the deal.
Makes more sense for me to keep it, she concluded.
Why am I sharing this story?
And why is it relevant?
Well, you see, I did not go to the city.
The plans had changed, and I think it was an alignment of sorts too.
I got back to my computer, since I had some catching up to do with work. Tuesdays are deployment days, and it's up to me to run the E2E before the big merge, as I call it, so I'm just focusing on the mission at hand.
At a distance, a big thud interrupts the otherwise normal rainy day.
It's not pouring like St. Peter hates us, but it's becoming humid enough for me to hide inside our only enclosed room.
Less than a minute later, my mother screams out my name.
My wife, being her, checks to see if I heard my mother's voice.
Her screams are getting even louder.
I leave everything and take off running.
As if St. Peter was waiting for me to leave the house, the faucet in the sky opens at full force.
Within a minute, I'm soaking wet.
I get to the cabin where my mother is, and she's pointing at the back.
FIRE, she finally says.
The breaker box is on fire.
You see, what happened was deliciously chaotic.
A tree's branch decided to give up on life and bungee-jumped into the ground.
The workers, thankfully, had just moved out of the way, as they were literally right under that tree digging up more trenches to deal with the floods.
Had they been there when the branch fell, we might have had to make a trip to the hospital.
But the branch's downward trajectory did bring a big problem to our plates.
It ripped out power lines, creating a short that resulted in this breaker box, thanks to the downpour too, resembling a Chinese firecracker show.
Don't touch it! my mother shouts.
Her motherly instincts never dulling.
No worries, I won't.
Not with my hand.
I ran into the storage unit, grabbed a boogie board and a stick.
I dropped the boogie board on the floor, stepped on it, and then proceeded to play piñata with the breakers.
I wanted them to disconnect the lines so the sparks would stop.
After a second whack, they came loose.
Now the lines on the floor were dead, and nobody was at risk of being electrocuted, but we still had another issue at hand:
The fire.
You see, cabins, and ours are no exception, are usually made out of very flammable materials.
Ours even worse, since we've patched the roof with plastic just to get through these crazy times on a shoestring budget.
I remembered my aunt had a fire extinguisher in her car, a requirement for the car inspection she had just passed.
We rushed to grab it and used it to put out the fire.
A few more sparks for good measure, and it was over.
My heart was beating like a colibri's in mid-flight, but I was smiling ear to ear, because the worst outcome had been avoided.
We went back inside to wait for the rains to stop.
A few hours later, I went back out to look at everything.
It's all a melted mess.
As far as I can tell, nothing in that box was saved.
But who cares?
Nobody got hurt.
I think this little "adventure" of ours will forever live in my memory.
I could have easily gone to the city.
We could have sold the car at a discount.
AND, we would have probably returned to a burned-down home.
Or possibly an even worse outcome, not even worth mentioning.
And you know what?
It's only Tuesday.
MenO