09.24.2025

An essay on  phone chargers, fast cars, Jolly Ranchers, and Stan from Big Flats.

This past January I spent a few days in the hospital because of a cat bite that got infected. I was lucky to have friends with me. Doug and Mary stayed with me in the ER, visited me in the hospital, and eventually drove me home.

Hospitals have every kind of equipment imaginable these days, but the one I was in still had those old-fashioned “princess” phones from the 1960s. The only thing they have going for them is that they work, but only if you know the number of the person you want to talk to.

I can recite two numbers from memory: mine and my brother’s. Fortunately, I keep a charger in my purse, which meant if I could get out of bed and maneuver my IV pole around, I could find an outlet and recharge my phone so I could call and let them know what was going on.

It’s become a running joke among my friends that my purse is a modern-day Mary Poppins disaster preparedness bag. While others tuck their favorite brand of lipstick or grocery shopping receipts inside their purses, mine holds a phone charger, a measuring tape, ear plugs, Band-Aids, and that little tool that promises to break your car window if you end up driving into a lake. “What can possibly happen that you need all that stuff?” friends ask.

If they only knew.

The habit started decades ago on a long day trip after my then-significant-other (SO) purchased a new sports car. He wanted to “see what this baby could do” on the highway. This was the era before cellphones, GPS systems, and even MapQuest, so we grabbed an old fashioned folded map — the kind that requires origami skills to open and refold – and headed out. Destination: The Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, NY.

The day was picture-perfect: warm sunlight, leaves just beginning to turn colors, and few, if any construction barrels lining the highway like an endless line of outsized bowling pins. My SO loved the car’s features, which kept him distracted so I could focus on being the navigator, an anxiety-provoking job I dreaded at all cost.

We were supposed to stay on I-90 and turn toward the Finger Lakes when we reached Rochester. Sounds easy, right? But reading maps was not my gift, and patience was not my SO’s gift, either.  After one missed exit, he grabbed the map from my hands and proceeded to read it himself while driving 75MPH on the highway. The good news: my job as the team's navigator had been terminated. The bad news: I was pretty sure I was going to die in a car crash somewhere along a highway in New York state.

Six hours and several additional detours later (not of my making) we arrived in Corning. We could see the sign for the museum. The entrance was maybe 500 feet head of us when suddenly his brand new shiny sports car died. No noise, no drama; it was as if an invisible hand had mysteriously entered the car through an air vent and turned off the ignition. It coasted along the side of the road until it lost momentum and came to a full and silent stop in front of an empty parking lot.

After peering under the hood and looking for who knows what in there, we wandered the strip of stores searching for a public phone. Finally, we found a functioning phone booth. My SO called AAA and was told, “Someone will be by soon.” Soon turned into four hours. By this time, we were hot, hungry and more than a little irritable. He paced. I sat on the curb and said nothing.

At dusk, a noisy old flatbed truck rumbled down the road. It made its way toward us and pulled up behind the car. The driver climbed down: Stan from Big Flats, emerged. He looked like a miniature Santa, complete with white hair and beard, faded flannel shirt, worn jeans, boots, and the kind of stare that made you feel like you’ve already lost an argument you didn't know you were going to have.

He tinkered around the hood and after half an hour, stated the obvious. “Your car is dead.” His solution: load it on the flatbed, haul it back to Ohio, and drop it at our local garage.

“How much?” My SO asked.

“Cash only,” Stan replied. “Five hundred dollars.” We had credit cards but not that much cash so we promised him we would stop at an ATM before he dropped off the car near our home. Stan looked at me, then at my SO, and back at me. After what seemed to be an eternity, he mumbled, “Climb in.”

He opened his truck cab. It was a shrine to travel neglect: fast-food wrappers, empty cups, maps, cigarette packs, old newspapers, etc. Some clothes were stashed in the glove compartment. The toes of an errant sock stared at us in abject despair. Stan had to scoop items off the seat so we could sit.

Silently, we climbed in, squished together in the front seat, and began the long drive home. An hour in, my SO suggested we stop for something to eat. Stan reached behind him, and like a magician, produced a half-filled bag of Jolly Ranchers candy and offered them to us. “Help yourselves,” he said, and kept driving.

At the Pennsylvania line he asked again if we had enough cash. We reassured him we did. When we finally pulled into our condo’s parking lot well after midnight, my SO ran to an ATM, withdrew the ransom, and handed it over. Stan — stoic, wordless — got back into his cab. My SO started to tell him there was a motel near the freeway if he didn’t want to drive back to Big Flats, but Stan was long gone before he could even finish the sentence.

I tell the story now because of what it made me do next. Between that day and my hospital stay, I started to take readiness seriously – too seriously, some would argue.

The trunk of my SUV now holds jumper cables, an electronic starter, a tire-inflator gizmo, blankets, a tarp, an umbrella that could cover a family of five, and a flashlight with enough lumens to light an airport runway. If the trunk were bigger, I’d add water, six months of provisions, fuel, a tent, sleeping bags, a camping stove and a small pharmacy. I joke that I’m prepared for every emergency except the one that will probably happen, but I take comfort in knowing that I’m at least trying to be as prepared as possible. Anything is better than another midnight ride with Stan from Big Flats.

And when a cat bite lands you in the ER, and people are there for you, the little things in your purse — the charger, the tape measure, the Band-Aids — suddenly feel practical, and not at all peculiar.

Preparedness, it turns out, is less about surviving the weirdest stories and more about making sure you have small comforts and friends to call on when you need them.

May you have an abundance of both.

Take Me Home, Country Roads,” written by Bill Danoff, Taffy Nivert, and John Denver, and first recorded by John Denver (1971).