Stranded by the road-side

A few days back, when I was getting back home from work, my car suffered a break down. Though I had taken an offbeat road that day, the traffic was nevertheless very high, considering it was the peak hour. With very little knowledge on automobile service/recovery, no proper documentation of road-side assistance/service numbers and when Google searches failed to deliver, I resorted to phone-a-friend as the last option.

Fortunately, this option did work and I got numbers of few vehicle-towing service providers. From the numbers, I ended up calling Allianz roadside assistance, which offered very prompt services. They assured of a pickup in 60 minutes, however they had a strange pre-condition of online payment by the customer before initiating processing. Though demanding an upfront online-only payment from a customer stranded by the roadside didn't sound like a great model, I did manage to make a payment, inspite of running low on mobile battery.

The towing vehicle getting into position, while traffic flows by

Though it appeared by then that I had to just wait it out until the tow truck arrived, things didn't pan out that easily. Having gotten stranded on an off-road, in a drizzling weather and running low on mobile battery, I had to kill time by sitting in the vehicle. Thats when I had to put up with stares from every vehicle or passerby crossing me. And, they were of all kinds - the angry look from people who thought someone had pulled over, blocking traffic on a busy road to just while away time; the occasional sneers from few vehicles; and the genuinely puzzled, curious look from a lot of passengers, who at times paused in their tracks, some even re-traced steps back to my vehicle to give a proper, top-down stare before moving on!

Tried of this routine & unsure on how to respond to the stares, I finally pulled out my laptop and watched a movie. I'm sure this would have doubled the curiosity and furiousness of fellow passengers, but atleast that kept me glued to the screen. And, Backcountry was a movie that matched the mood :) 

The learnings for me from this episode were:

• Spend time learning basics of car issues & recovery, like a first-aid. Perhaps, keep a small printed cheat-sheet handy, to try out basic options before escalating for expert-help
• Keep the numbers of multiple service centres in the locality (I had just the one where I usually get service done, and that had closed for the day), apart from the numbers of towing services

...and perhaps, keep some movies handy to keep yourself engaged!