I can explain what I was doing standing on the edge of a heavily-trafficked suburban highway, an oversized red Bible in hand while I peered across the roofs of the onrushing motorcade.
I can explain it without any serious hope of extracting much sympathy. Two friends who recognized me called later to find out whether I had staked out the corner of County Road 6 and Interstate 494 to deliver a prophecy. They said they were surprised because they never heard of a prophet wearing a T shirt illustrated in front with a cartoon of five shaggy Himalayan animals going “Yakety Yakety Yak.”

I am not going to burden you with the fringe embarrassments. The truth is that I was about to run out of gas and was looking for my wife, who I believed at that very moment was charging to my rescue in her handy Prius. I didn’t intend it to become a saga. I considered explaining my vigil to a few motorists who slowed down to inquire. I was going to tell them that I was searching for my wife. But warning buzzers soon sounded in the backwaters of my brain. Talk like that could have subjected my wife to suspicion of desertion, for which I admit ample grounds existed.
What happened was the price I paid for my ignorance of some of the thrilling advances in the dashboard services now available in today’s automobiles. It left me approaching empty on the gas gauge en route to a meeting. The only rescue service available to me was my wife, which is where the melodrama began.
I attend a Tuesday morning men’s meeting where a small group of us gather to explore the repair work needed in the spiritual condition of our lives. We take turns as the weekly presenter. A last minute announcement from the scheduled discussion leader, who was unavoidably extended at a conference out of town, stirred my juices of volunteerism. The morning of the meeting I quickly prepared some talking points and for support hauled with me a Bible I received 25 years ago as birthday gift. I backed my new two-weeks-old car out of the garage 15 minutes away from the scheduled start of the meeting, just enough time to be the first to arrive with an explanation of the curriculum change.
Ten minutes into the ride I checked the instrument panel for the fuel gauge. My eyes settled on the familiar circle and arrow to the left of the stirring wheel. The arrow was set halfway up the gauge. A minute later I reviewed the rest of the metrics and was stunned to confront one on the right side of the wheel, identified at the top with an F for Full and at the bottom with an E for Empty. The arrow pointed indisputably at E. The other thing I noticed was that it was blinking violently. It didn’t matter that I quickly figured out the confusion of dials. The prior week I had been driving six or seven hours a day in a rented van, with the gas gauge left of the wheel.
I stared again at the dial of my new car. At the top it read H for Hot and at the bottom C of Cool. In my misery I imagined a quick change in the alphabet and added a D for Dummy. I turned the car into a service lane just off the highway and phoned my wife at home two miles away. No answer. I tried her cell. Nothing. I tried the land line three times. Voice mail. It was brutal. I could hardly call 911. She answered the fourth call. “I was watering the flowers,” she said sweetly. Apologizing to my wife and the flowers, I gave her an estimate of the situation, the way we learned it in the Army. I might run out of gas before I reached a station plus it would throw the meeting out of whack. I then walked back to the rush hour traffic to spot her, hauling the Bible because we were going to make a quick change—I’d drive her car to the meeting, she drives mine to the gas station. For all of it’s reverence, this was a BIG, DEEP, RED Bible, maybe maroon red, maybe vermilion red, immediately announcing me to part of the curious traffic as a potentially defrocked preacher or a traveling peddler.
My wife saved the day with all flags flying. I made it to the meeting. She filled the tank and the flowers survived. Later, at home, I took my first tour of that little old automobile manual. My wife strode through the house the rest of the day like the commander of the evacuation armada at Dunkirk. Naturally, I saluted.