By Nicholas Proch

“A little to the left. Too far. Your left. That’s not left.”

Sweat is beading down both of our foreheads. I, standing in my khaki pants and button down shirt, have now become a dictator from the other side of my car.

The person I’m yelling instructions to is clad in dark blue scrubs and a yellow reflective work vest. We’re standing in the sun in the parking lot of Hebrew High School of New England.

The glass and steel box that is a Jeep Wrangler is a statement of simplicity in a vehicle. The only thing they didn’t skimp on was the door locking mechanisms.

Over an hour earlier, I was late for teaching my second class at HHNE. I decided to put my cell phone in the glove box, so I would not be one of those administrators whose phone rings after they expect you to not have one yourself.

In the process of putting my phone in the glove box, something that I never do, my subconscious was overly concerned with getting to my class on time. It also may have also gotten confused about what my hands were doing.

The usual process of getting out of a vehicle is as follows. Park. Turn the car off. Take the keys out of the ignition. Put said keys in your pocket or bag. Lock the doors. Shut the doors. Walk away.

Somewhere in that process I got distracted. Possibly by the aggravating schedule I keep or just the simple fact that I threw my brain a curveball by reaching for the glove box. Sorry for adding an extra step and throwing us so far off course!

As I walked away from the car I realized I didn’t have my keys in my pocket. I also remember that I had locked my trunk the previous night when I went to the movies. My trunk is always unlocked, but I thought it would be foolish to let it sit unlocked in the Loews’ parking lot in Plainville for several hours.

I told myself I would deal with my car afterwards. So here we are, back to the parking lot with the burly Latino man from the American Automotive Association, or AAA (Triple-A).

As he worked to get the door open for me, I stood there and thought about how ridiculous it was that this was even happening. It also occurred to me that this is just another example of what we should be doing as a country.

AAA was founded in 1902. It got its start because of a demand for service and repair on the nation’s growing road infrastructure. It was created due to the fact that roads and streets were literally damaging cars. The association was formed as a club. This club would take care of its members and help them get to their destinations safely. They provided, and still do, maps, road side services, driver training and the list goes on.

What struck me was the fact that we did this without waiting for the government to do so. The painful stretch of time that we now call the ‘Obama Administration’ has turned us into dependent lumps. We are waiting to be saved. There was once a time when Americans would take it upon themselves to fix a problem.

Because of AAA, and their vast amounts of members behind them, the departments of transportation around the country had to listen to the voice of the motorist. It’s time we did that with politics. We may have been founded on this basis, but we certainly have lost it.

“You’re really close. Just a little to the left.”

Click.

“You got it!”

At this point, this service agent and I were now jubilant and yelling. It may have taken a half hour, but victories like this make you really appreciate a system that works.