Moms Don’t Let Their Babies Grow Up To Drive Tow Trucks

“I’m only going to stay 2 nights” David assured his young wife. This was the first time she had to leave her new family alone overnight. However, it was for a good reason, he tried to convince himself.

As he headed to the plane, she said goodbye once more. “I hope you’re not stage fright,” Maggie teased him. “How many people are you going to be standing on again?” She ignored the comment.

“Now listen, I called mom and if you and the twins need anything, call her, okay?” He insisted. “I will, I will, don’t worry about me. If I were you, I’d worry more about giving your presentation in front of all those people,” he laughed.

David had landed a new position with an engineering consulting firm and was on his way to a convention hundreds of miles away. To say that he was worried about leaving his wife and babies was an understatement, but his mother lived near him and she promised to help him if something happened.

Maggie hung up the phone still giggling as she worked to dress the twins. “We’re going to have fun while dad’s away,” she told the 18-month-old girls, “let’s go shopping.”

Shopping with twin babies always starts out fun, but by the third feeding and fourth crying fit, Maggie was done. She was starting to get late anyway.

She loaded the minivan with shopping bags and babies and hit the road. The sun was in her eyes on that hot summer night as she turned a corner onto Route 8 out of town on her way back to the house.

He barely saw a blur when it happened. “How could such a small animal cause such a ruckus?” she would remember later. As she turned the corner, a young spotted fawn was standing there sampling a tasty spot on the road. At the last possible moment, he saw him lift his head from her, forcing her to take the other lane and back into hers and then down the embankment into the trees…

Carl’s day was almost over, he had been on duty since 6:00 am and now it was almost 7:30 pm “Sometimes they treat me like I’m part of the problem when I’m really there to sort out the problem,” he said. That was a signal to his boss that it was time for the tow truck driver to get some rest. That’s when the phone rang.

“This is Highway Patrol Operator Tungstin.” The voice on the phone alerted “We need you for an accident on Route 8.”

As Carl reluctantly climbed on the crane and headed there, he began to think of other things he could do for a living instead of this thankless job…

Maggie still had an iron grip on the steering wheel when the minivan came to an abrupt stop. On her wheels with trees all around her, she turned quickly to check on the girls who were still comfortable in their car seats. As she freed both babies and thoroughly checked for injuries, she was relieved to find nothing wrong.

First she calls 911, then David, then Mom.

“911, what’s your emergency?” “I ran off the road and got stuck in the trees on the road,” Maggie told them. “Okay, ma’am, are there any injuries?” “No, we’re all good, but my truck is stuck and I don’t know exactly where I am.” “We’ll find you, I just need a little more information…”

When Carl arrived on the scene, firefighters, emergency medical services, and law enforcement were already there, but he didn’t see a wrecked car anywhere. “Oh great, he’s coming down the embankment, I’m going to be here for a while,” he told himself.

Carl crawled from the cab of his tow truck and walked up to the officer and asked where the vehicle was. When the officer pointed down the hill, he said; “See that tree down there and that little hump? It’s just over that hump to the left about 100 yards away and it went over a couple of trees, so there’s no telling what kind of damage is underneath.”

“Just the kind of work I need to finish off this glorious day” Carl thought as he headed to work. Disgusted with the situation, he set about blocking, hoisting, and hauling the damaged truck to the edge of the road. After an hour and a half of recovery work, all that was left was to load it into his wrecker and tow it back to the shop.

That’s when Maggie showed up. “Hey, good job getting it out, it went in a lot easier than it came out,” she joked.

“Uh, yeah, thanks,” Carl managed to say. The last time he spent so much time working to recover a wrecked vehicle, the underinsured owner went crazy over the price, so he expected the same from Maggie.

“Hey,” he said, Carl was waiting for him. “Do you think you can take me and the girls?”

“Laugh about?” this was not what Carl expected.

I don’t get paid to do all this extra stuff, Carl thought.

“Yeah, I guess so,” he said.

“I’m going to need a little help getting those car seats out of the truck, though,” Maggie suggested politely.

“Little help, yes I am,” Carl muttered to himself.

With the backseat loaded with the twins, Maggie in the passenger seat, and her wrecked van on the hook, this parade could finally begin.

As they traveled the 22 miles back to Maggie’s house, she began to talk about her husband’s new job and the fact that he was out of town and her mother-in-law couldn’t pick them up because she had been in the eye. her doctor that day and she couldn’t see to drive. Maggie talked about the move they had made 4 years earlier from another state and how she loved the house they now lived in and so on.

Carl listened, drove and began to think about his wife and young son and how horrible it would be if they got into an accident while he was gone. Then, when he looked to turn around, he caught a glimpse of the two babies in the back seat. The light of a passing car had illuminated them for only a second, but they looked happy, content, and confident. It was then that he realized that he was doing more than just a job, he was helping people during one of his most vulnerable moments, he was helping families.

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