Sometimes I don’t even have to think about what I should write.

The stuff of life just hands it to me.

This weekend was kind of like that.

And when it all went down, my friend hannaH laughed.  “This is perfect.  If this is going to happen in anyone’s life in this particular way, it’s going to happen to you.”

That wasn’t exactly encouraging.  But it wasn’t really insulting either.  More like a commentary. A commentary on what feels to be an accurate description of the way things go for Team Keigley.

It all started out so well.  Which also might serve as some commentary on how things progress here too.  We’re pretty a-okay at beginnings.  But man, those middles and those endings can get pretty dicey in a hurry.

Our family had dinner downtown with friends.  It was a great meal.  All the kids that outnumbered all the adults behaved like royalty.  Well, behaved like polite and sane members of the human race, which might be better than royalty, now that I think of it.  (I mean, what do I know of royalty anyway?)  At any rate, the kids were great, the food was delicious, the server was kind and interesting and not overwhelmed.

Following dinner we planned to meet back up at a local theatre for a performance.

Driving across town in the rain, I switched lanes and heard a popping sound bursting forth from my back right wheel area.  It was loud and it was concerning, but nothing seemed to be wrong.  Hannah could see the tire and the rear of the car from her mirror and there seemed to be no obvious problem.

At the theatre we find our seats and collectively gather ourselves for a show.

Which – by the way – is incredible.  It’s Prince Caspian at the Logos Theatre in Taylors.  (They will be performing it again in January.)  It is fantastic!  The stage set changes that they pull off are just fabulous and such fun to watch.  The cast is simply charming and the set design is stunning and the whole show from start to finish is pure theatre magic.  It’s a long show, but you don’t even notice because you are happy for it to just keep happening on stage in front of you.  It’s an altogether satisfying experience.

After the show we hung around for the backstage passes to see Douglas Gresham again – the son of C.S. Lewis’s wife, Joy.  He was in the audience to see the show one last time before heading home to Malta.  (An island we now know to be in the Mediterranean Sea.)  We were able to stand close and to touch the amazingly well done gigantic puppets that are Aslan and Prince Caspian’s horse.

Finally, and it is very late by now, we head to our waiting cars in the dark evening.

And we see, of course, that the back rear tire of the Yukon is very very flat indeed.

“Mom, our tire is really flat,” Otto announced to us all.  “Flat just like in the movies!”

Yes.  It was dramatically flat.  All through the play it had apparently been putting on a little performance of its own.

Naturally, nothing can be simple and of course the spare tire would not release from its location with anything resembling ease.  Eventually, with the generous help of a total of four grown men, the spare was released, the flat tire was removed, the spare was put on and the vehicle was usable again.

All of that was easy to write in a sentence.  It required the work of nearly two hours, unfortunately.  Two hours where people generously gave their time to my family to help us get our tire changed and in working order again.  Nice people certainly do exist.  And not one of them was unkind nor grumbling about the delay, the slow work, the annoying issues that kept popping up with each new step.  The kids all played and waited with great patience and joy.

It was a long night.

When we were finally in the car and headed in the direction of home, we all debated stopping at a Waffle House for sustenance.  Ultimately we decided that none of us wanted to get out of the car.  But we were still desiring some sort of something and there are not exactly a lot of options open at that time in the evening.

So we did what I seldom do and pulled right on into McDonald’s.  Everyone wanted ice cream so we ordered that and then I mentioned to hannaH that I had not consumed McDonald’s french fries in over seven years probably.

It was probably the late night, the flat tire, the I don’t know, but I just spontaneously added in an order of fries to my ice cream requests.  When I got to the window I asked for extra salt, because – if I am going to climb on board with McDonald’s french fires – I’m going to be doing that with extra salt.

It was late.  I was hungry.  The fries were served very hot, and I tell you what – those french fries were good.  They were so salty that my lips kind of felt like they were burning – you know what I mean?

Like I said, these sort of stories?  They just follow me around.

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