A Damsel in Distress and a Dude in a Dilemma

Sunday was Amanda's week to volunteer in Extended Teaching Care at church during the morning services. She loves the opportunity to hold the newborn babies. If I were her, I would love the fact that volunteers are not permitted to change the diapers. That is a paid worker's duty (no pun intended). But I digress ...

So, we decided that I would go to morning church, too, and we planned for her to pick me up just before 9:00 am since I'm on her way to HFBC.

Well, just before 9:00 am Amanda called me. I assumed she was going to tell me she was on her way. Instead, she told me she was stranded in Memorial Park with a flat tire.

This is the part of the story where those of you who know me well are probably thinking to yourself, "Oh no! What's he going to do?" Or, perhaps you thought, "Oh no! Why did Amanda call Steven?"

From my perspective, this is the part of the story where I am suddenly torn between all of the societal pressures to be "that guy" -- the superhero boyfriend who can do it all -- and reality.

Since I was dressed and ready to go, I told her I would be there in a minute. I rounded up my Bible and all the things that would go in a man-bag if they were socially acceptable (phone, keys, sunglasses, iPod, wallet, loose change). All the while, I'm thinking of solutions to the problem. (The tire problem -- not the man-bag problem. Besides, there was a story on the TODAY show that morning about man-bags, so I had some options in mind for that dilemma.)

On the short drive to reach Amanda, I called Option #1 - Memorial Car Care Center at Memorial and 610. Nope -- closed on Sundays.

When I reached the damsel in distress, she was all smiles (as usual) and we couldn't help but laugh at the situation -- not only for the timing of it all, but for what I think we both knew would somehow turn in to a great story.

As we sat in the air-conditioned luxury of my car and watched sweaty people running by, I explained how this was all going to go down:

Yes, I can change the tire. I know how to do that. (In my mind, however, I wondered if foreign cars were any different or more difficult. If that were the case, we were hosed.) However, we are both pretty and ready for church. If I were to change the tire, I would have to go home, shower, and change clothes. That would make us miss the worship service.

Being the wonderful woman she is, she totally understood -- and agreed.

So, we tried Option #2 -- the Shell station across from the Memorial Car Care Center. Nope -- we would have to have it towed to them to change it. That's retarded.

Then Amanda came up with the winning solution -- an ingenious idea that cost nothing (except for a nice dinner and a few hits to my pride). We called David Hilburn.

I dialed his number on my phone and then quickly gave it to her, thinking he would be more responsive to a damsel in distress than a dude. As the phone rang, we realized that my name would come up on his caller ID -- so we hoped he wouldn't notice. Turns out, he wasn't too far away and he said he would gladly come and help her.

Since Amanda did not reveal that I was already on the scene -- and since he did not ask about the caller ID -- Hilburn was surprised to see me when he got there. His first thought was that he would be off the hook since I was there to help.

Wrong.

After some ridicule and threats to blog about it all, Hilburn got to work. Keep in mind that I did help some -- taking the spare and the tools out of the trunk, giving verbal support from the sidelines, and telling Amanda that it's probably not a good idea to lean on a car that is up on a jack. All very valuable contributions, if you ask me.

With the spare "doughnut" in place, we were ready to go.

As Hilburn drove away, he showed me his laptop and said, "All I have to do is find a place with WiFi and I'm posting about this!" You can read his version of the story here.

In "Roles Of A Man" taught by Don Munton (Minister to Single Adults), we learn that a man's role is to provide, protect, teach and guide. I would like to think that I did just that, even if I didn't get dirty. When it was all said and done, Amanda had four tires, she made it to the worship service on time, and she was still pretty -- and so was her boyfriend.

What more could a woman want? (Can I get an "AMEN!" Please?)