Texas tags

Saturday, June 10, 2023

(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)

Tobit told his son, “See to it that you give what is due to the man who made the journey with you; give him a bonus, too.”

This has been bugging me for months. It’s time to change from Illinois to Texas license plates. We live kind of half time in each state, but our Illinois registration expires June 30. It feels like the right time to switch.

So yesterday after a sweet talk time with my spiritual director Deb, talking through this anxiety and that, minor and major, car plates and next Monday’s heart cath, the uncertainty of it all, I bit the bullet. I packed up all the papers I need in a plastic page holder, a couple of sandwiches and apple, a full thermos of cold water, my kindle and ipad and phone … because I expect to be there all day, waiting in line. Yes sir, you are number 81. We are currently serving number 31. Have a good life.

Then I drove our unsuspecting white Prius twenty minutes down the road, turned left across traffic, and parked in a small lot. Only a few cars parked. What? I walked in and signed in, and I was #2 in line. This was not the picture I imagined! This was going to be simple and quick.

And it was. Karen slicked me through the whole process. I had actually brought everything I needed. She handed me two white Texas plates (they start with TDX, which sounds science fiction-y and almost like TEX) and she smiled goodbye.

Yesterday was our first heat wave day, and in the sun outside the county tax office it would be getting into the upper 90s, probably already was. I started to take off our back plate. I brought the 10mm socket, but it just turned and turned. I sprayed WD-40 and tried the front plate. Better. The bolts came loose. I put on the new plate. It looked very white. I put the bolts back in. I was happy.

A constable keeps an office inside, and Karen told me he was happy to help pretty girls put on their plates. I decided to give it a try. Although he didn’t look closely at my pretty face, he did look at the bolts. “I think they are stripped. I wish I could help.”

OK, for a few hours my car will be registered in Texas and Illinois. No problem. I got a few miles down the road, heading for an auto parts store, got thirsty, and realized I’d left my water bottle. Turned around, came back, this time the parking lot is entirely empty. And my water bottle was sitting behind the desk, waiting for me.

Ah!

At O’Reilly’s I bought a rear window wiper blade, and James put it on for me. It went on hard, tight, took a couple of solid pushes. Then we looked at the plate bolts.

James is 60, Hispanic, wears a colorful Catholic cross around his neck. He doesn’t smile. “We’ll get this,” he says. “Do not worry, we’ll get this.” We had to remove the back hatchback door’s interior plastic. (James did all of that. He did something, I don’t know what, and he says, “That was my fault.” He repeated himself.

I looked at his cross. “Nothing is your fault, James. You just look at your cross, ask God for forgiveness, and move on. No problem. You are free.”

His eyes shaded over. “Thank you. You are blessing me. I heard bad news about my daughter’s health this morning. I needed that.”

About your heart? “No, my daughter.”

“Oh, that’s much worse than about your heart.”

We spent forty-five minutes together with vice grips and socket wrench, and the old bolts at last gave way. The new bolts weren’t easy to screw into the new nuts, and we worked awhile on those too. I wiped the hot sweat off my face with a red handkerchief.

“A handkerchief!” he said. “My dad carried a handkerchief.” Mine too, I said. He was a farmer.

“You can tell me about your daughter, if you want,” I said. He hesitated.

“She went to the hospital this morning in an ambulance. She could hardly breathe. She graduated from college last year. She got married. She is so beautiful, just like my wife. My wife is 55 but doesn’t look like 55. Maybe it’s a respiratory problem, but I think it will go back to her liver.”

He took his tools back into the store, and I struggled with the big black plastic panel. In a minute he came out again. “I didn’t finish my job,” he said. And with a few well-placed blows the panel was back in place.

I tried to give him a tip. $10 bill.

“I don’t want that,” he said.

Maybe use it to buy some snack for all of you working here today?

“I’ll buy ice cream for them.” Then he put the $10 bill in his pocket. “Across the street is a new ice cream store. On its opening day I stood in line for a couple of hours, because the first 100 customers get free ice cream for a year. I was number 77.”

We both love ice cream. And he smiled. “Butter pecan is my downfall,” he said. I eat it at night, and even sometimes at breakfast. And I get a three dip cone from the store every week.”

That’s my story. I’m so glad those bolts did not just slip out.

Before all the living, acknowledge the many good things he has done for you. Sing and proclaim God’s deeds and do not be slack in praising him. The works of God are to be declared and made known.