Your Tax Money Working For You

I don’t know how many times I’ve seen this sign while driving up and the down the freeway here in the Bay Area. I’m one for those people who’d usually complain about the toll fees going up (when I see it) or on some occassions, you’d hear me yelling at the top my voice saying — is there anything free here in America? Well, I stand corrected. There’s still freebies out there, that I just discovered this morning.

I was driving down the 101 Freeway earlier on my way back to the East Bay, when I realized that my car was starting to slow down. So, I decided to stop and parked my vehicle on the side. It was then that I discovered, I had a flat tire. Grrrrr! Everybody knows that when it comes to cars and things related to it, I am a total ignoramus. I called Mom who recommended that I call AAA Vehicle Assistance. My cellphone battery was going low, so I asked mother to coordinate the whole enter process in my behalf. And in case she couldn’t reach me on my cellphone, I told her to call me via On Star.

Five minutes after, I saw a tow truck parked behind me. A gentleman wearing a dark blue utility uniform came to me and said, My name is James from the CHP Roadside Assistance. Do you know where you have your spare tire? And so, I opened my rear trunk and pointed the tire to him. My cellphone rang after and it was Mom on the other line, she said to me, AAA is on it’s way! But I was like, who’s this person helping me now? It wasn’t till later that I discovered that James works for the California Highway Patrol. Part of there FREE service to stranded motorist. I had to repeat the word FREE, it was REALLY.

Funny, how I thought that nothing is ever free, ever. Like every darn freaking service, be it private or government owned, they’d usually have a tag price attached to it. Like I said earlier, I stand corrected. I was wrong to say that.  And it’s quite humbling for me to say that, my tax money is indeed working to my advantage…