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sugarplumkittyLast Thursday night I went to the networking lab as usual and worked until it closed. My lab partner and I helped the lab teacher clean up and walked up the hill to our cars. As I turned the car around to leave, my headlights brushed a car with the hood up and three people bent over it. Thinking they might need my jumper cables I turned around again and parked near them. It was a young woman I'd chatted with a couple of weeks ago. Did I post about that? Probably not.
Two weeks ago as I headed up to the parking lot by myself, the light at the end of the corridor was burned out and it was extremely dark. As I turned from the end of the corridor toward the parking lot, I sensed a person walking along the outer edge of the building and coming up behind me. As I've been taught in the self-defense course I took, I turned to make eye contact with the large shadowy form and a female voice called out "Hello!" She caught up with me and we walked up the hill together. She's trying to get into nursing school and has to travel 1.5 hours to get to Foothill to take the course she needs. She's separated from her husband and they've got two daughters. One is five years old and the other is four months old. When she's at school either her mom or her husband stay with the girls. She works with special ed kids in a private school chain and was going to ask if they have any openings in this area.
Personally, I think she's insane to commute that far to school in the first place. To do it while working full time and trying to raise two little ones? Wow. Then to stand in a parking lot and chat for an hour before starting that 1.5 hour commute is really nuts. But she's a sweetheart and I like her. Her courage to take all this on is amazing.
It was her car with the trouble. She'd had a fender-bender at some point in the recent past that destroyed the yellow trim light, but by some miracle the headlight still worked even if it was pushed back in the frame. The day before, that headlight stopped working. Her husband put a light bulb in the car for her and she decided she'd change it before heading home after class. It was a bulb for her brake light. The headlight was halogen. She refused to drive it with no lights at all on that quarter of the car and was trying to take the bulb from the undamaged headlight and replace the one in the damaged one. The two guys helping her were from my class. They helped her get it out of the reflector and she touched the bulb with her finger, not knowing you can't do that and expect the bulb to last. Skin oils will heat up and cause the glass to blister and burst. She didn't know what to do. The guys weren't helping much. They suggested she find a motel for the night. I told them she couldn't do that. She has a baby at home. The guys left when I said I'd make sure things worked out.
The first thing we did was to go to the campus police and ask for help. All they said was they could make sure her car was left alone if it spent the night. They suggested AAA. She had let hers expire because they just don't have money for it. I still have mine! I called. There is no help for lights. They could tow the car somewhere, but couldn't help us fix the lights. Ok. I called Eric to see if he thought Walgreens would have light bulbs for cars. He said he seriously doubted it, but suggested we wash the bulb she touched with soap and water to remove the skin oils. I'd thought of that myself. She kept saying she couldn't drive home with only one headlight. We couldn't figure out how to get the bulb out of the socket, so I volunteered to bring soap and water from the washroom to wash it in the socket. The last thing I wanted to do was to destroy the one working light she had. We walked down to the restroom together while she talked to her husband on the phone. He wasn't nice to her at all. I wanted to kick him. This school has air dryers for hands so I had to use toilet paper. By the time I got the light washed, soap wiped off with wet paper and dried, he had decided to pack the kids into his car and drive out to caravan back with her. She was going to drive his car with two working headlights and he was going to drive the one-eyed car.
She was going to have to wait 90 minutes for him alone in the parking lot. I couldn't let her do that, so I stayed and we chatted. I suggested we give her light a test so she'd be sure her car was safe to drive home. She started the engine and turned her lights on for about 20 minutes. We figured that was a good enough test. She had to pump her breast milk so she did that while we chatted. After 45 minutes, the parking lot lights went out, leaving us in complete darkness with only the stars for light. The moon must have been hiding out. That's when I heard it. Too high pitched and musical for a dog, the short barks and howls of a single coyote rang out. I knew they were around, but with all the camping I've done in my life I've never heard one. Maybe they avoid campgrounds.
I started getting really tired after about an hour of waiting for her husband, and she told me to go home. She moved her car down closer to the campus road that goes around the buildings, so she was in light again. By the time I left, she had about 20 minutes to wait. By then I'd shown her my favorite self-defense moves just in case she needed them, and told her to lock herself in when I was gone. She promised she would. I wish I'd told her to email me that she got home safely.
Two weeks ago as I headed up to the parking lot by myself, the light at the end of the corridor was burned out and it was extremely dark. As I turned from the end of the corridor toward the parking lot, I sensed a person walking along the outer edge of the building and coming up behind me. As I've been taught in the self-defense course I took, I turned to make eye contact with the large shadowy form and a female voice called out "Hello!" She caught up with me and we walked up the hill together. She's trying to get into nursing school and has to travel 1.5 hours to get to Foothill to take the course she needs. She's separated from her husband and they've got two daughters. One is five years old and the other is four months old. When she's at school either her mom or her husband stay with the girls. She works with special ed kids in a private school chain and was going to ask if they have any openings in this area.
Personally, I think she's insane to commute that far to school in the first place. To do it while working full time and trying to raise two little ones? Wow. Then to stand in a parking lot and chat for an hour before starting that 1.5 hour commute is really nuts. But she's a sweetheart and I like her. Her courage to take all this on is amazing.
It was her car with the trouble. She'd had a fender-bender at some point in the recent past that destroyed the yellow trim light, but by some miracle the headlight still worked even if it was pushed back in the frame. The day before, that headlight stopped working. Her husband put a light bulb in the car for her and she decided she'd change it before heading home after class. It was a bulb for her brake light. The headlight was halogen. She refused to drive it with no lights at all on that quarter of the car and was trying to take the bulb from the undamaged headlight and replace the one in the damaged one. The two guys helping her were from my class. They helped her get it out of the reflector and she touched the bulb with her finger, not knowing you can't do that and expect the bulb to last. Skin oils will heat up and cause the glass to blister and burst. She didn't know what to do. The guys weren't helping much. They suggested she find a motel for the night. I told them she couldn't do that. She has a baby at home. The guys left when I said I'd make sure things worked out.
The first thing we did was to go to the campus police and ask for help. All they said was they could make sure her car was left alone if it spent the night. They suggested AAA. She had let hers expire because they just don't have money for it. I still have mine! I called. There is no help for lights. They could tow the car somewhere, but couldn't help us fix the lights. Ok. I called Eric to see if he thought Walgreens would have light bulbs for cars. He said he seriously doubted it, but suggested we wash the bulb she touched with soap and water to remove the skin oils. I'd thought of that myself. She kept saying she couldn't drive home with only one headlight. We couldn't figure out how to get the bulb out of the socket, so I volunteered to bring soap and water from the washroom to wash it in the socket. The last thing I wanted to do was to destroy the one working light she had. We walked down to the restroom together while she talked to her husband on the phone. He wasn't nice to her at all. I wanted to kick him. This school has air dryers for hands so I had to use toilet paper. By the time I got the light washed, soap wiped off with wet paper and dried, he had decided to pack the kids into his car and drive out to caravan back with her. She was going to drive his car with two working headlights and he was going to drive the one-eyed car.
She was going to have to wait 90 minutes for him alone in the parking lot. I couldn't let her do that, so I stayed and we chatted. I suggested we give her light a test so she'd be sure her car was safe to drive home. She started the engine and turned her lights on for about 20 minutes. We figured that was a good enough test. She had to pump her breast milk so she did that while we chatted. After 45 minutes, the parking lot lights went out, leaving us in complete darkness with only the stars for light. The moon must have been hiding out. That's when I heard it. Too high pitched and musical for a dog, the short barks and howls of a single coyote rang out. I knew they were around, but with all the camping I've done in my life I've never heard one. Maybe they avoid campgrounds.
I started getting really tired after about an hour of waiting for her husband, and she told me to go home. She moved her car down closer to the campus road that goes around the buildings, so she was in light again. By the time I left, she had about 20 minutes to wait. By then I'd shown her my favorite self-defense moves just in case she needed them, and told her to lock herself in when I was gone. She promised she would. I wish I'd told her to email me that she got home safely.
