One of Life's Sweeter Moments

To many, a flat tire on the road of life is an annoyance--an obstacle. To me, the flat tires--and everyone else's resulting irritation--is a source of free entertainment. Which brings me to the flat tire incident . . .

Part of the Lares trek involves a steep climb up a winding road, the sort of drive that wreaks havoc on one's stomach, not to mention inducing a state of vertigo. In the middle of this stomach-churning ascent, we had the good fortune to have a flat tire--an interesting predicament, to say the least.

The scenario did my heart good. A few years back, you see, I attempted to change a flat tire on a slight incline. Upon removing the tire, I noted that the entire car was beginning to shift at an impressive rate onto my leg. In a moment of common sense (so rare to me), I removed my leg from the proximity of the vehicle and caught the sliding vehicle instead with the spare tire. There the car sat for the next few hours, the jack pointing to two o'clock and the spare bearing the weight of the vehicle, until my friend Ed showed up to rescue me. "You shouldn't change a tire on a gravelly incline," he said gravely.

I'm not sure what Ed would have advised in our current predicament, for there was ample gravel, a steep incline, and a precipice over which the van could have rolled, had it chosen to. Fortunately, I was not in charge of changing the tire, and I was eager to see how our Peruvian driver would fare. Rod, Linden, and I, and our porters and guide, each jumped out of the car. Within moments, the flat tire was replaced, as if by magic.

My heart was as flat as that first tire, now stowed safely in the compartment beneath the back seat. Here life had thrown us a wondrous challenge, stacking the odds against us, and our driver had prevailed. In fact, he had not even broken a sweat!

Fortunately, Fate had a pleasant surprise in store. As we piled back into that hot, cramped vehicle, my dear husband, the last to return to his seat, realized that he had a mound of fresh dog feces sealed into the treads of his boot. It was the perfect consistency, like an alarming shade of icing, and it was smeared across the floor of the van.

I laughed . . . perhaps harder than I ought.

For a few delightful moments, chaos prevailed. The Peruvians, normally so composed, flew into action. The porters jumped from the van to collect handfuls of grass and leaves to serve as rags. The guide, gagging at the smell, pulled out a strawberry air freshener and ripped off its plastic wrapping like a warrior pulling a sword from its sheath. Rod, muttering apologies, tried in vain to remove the traces of excrement from his boot treads with a rock.

I learned an important lesson that day: When the flat tires on the road of life fail to create enough havoc, don't despair. There just might be a pile of fresh doggie doo around the bend.