Too bad about the “too.”
It was an odd crossroad and it was dark. A mile out of town the two-lane road came to a stop. You turned left for the airport or you turned right to take the drive around the airport. There was no third option. That evening a woman went straight and in ten feet ran out of road and drove her car into a ditch.
I climbed out of the tow truck with my dad. I was learning how to drive. As soon as I got my license I would start making easy tow truck runs like this one. The art of the tow involved hooking the frame of the car. Not a bumper. Not an axle. If you weren’t careful you could tear up someone’s car. It was a shallow ditch. This would be an easy extraction.
We were being careful. My dad looked under the car, pointed, and said, “Watch.” While he worked I watched and chatted with the woman, reassuring her we would have her out of there in minutes. Maybe she had to catch a flight. I knelt down beside my dad and said, over my shoulder, for her benefit, “I’ve seen men do some pretty stupid things, too.”
He looked down, shook his head, and smiled.