College+Essay

Amanda Dunn

Who has threee flat tires in one night, on the same wheel? And who gets Domino's to deliver to her and her tow best friends on the side of the road? This girl right here. It is also the biggest bonding experience I have had with my friends and a big life lesson.

As my best friends and I left Busch Gardens, after an amazing day, we were ready to go home and into our beds. But of course my luck struck. Ba luck that is. We walked to my car that had a flat tire. Having five older brothers I wasn't worried at all. A flat tire is easy to fix. I got all my tools out and tried to ge the tire off. Unforunatley, knowing how to fix a tire and being physically capable are too different things. That's when we heard someone sneeze and Ariel yelled, "bless you" out into the dark parking lot. And my luck began to turn; a nice Army Fellow got the flat off and the dummy tire on. He warned me to drive slowly and set us off on our ong ride home.

All the cars on the road this lovely night seemed to be monster trucks. And they were all angry with me. Going twenty-five miles per hour on the interstate is not something i recommend. With my flasgers on I hid my face from the cars passing us, and all of a sudden we heard a pop... the dummy tire had blown. Haveing three females in the car after dark I did what I thought was best and kept driving till the next exit came along.

Fort Eustis is the exit we went to. At the time I had no idea it was a naval base. Not being part of the military I couldn't enter the base butI knew my car coudn't go any further; so we stopped right outside the gates. We were all tired, scared, and had no idea what to do. I told Ariel and Melanie to stay in the car while I checked the tire. I walked over to the damage and did what any person would do at that moment: shake my head and cry. A man with a whistle started coming towards us, I thought he would help. But no, instead he told me that I needed to get back ito my car and leave. I told the nice naval security man that my car couldn't move, literally. So he said to just leave my flashers on and get help. I am so frustrated at this point I started to cry.

Of course Melanie and Ariel wouldn't listen to me much longer and they set up camp on the trunk f my car. I made them call their parents and warn them that we will not be making it home on time. While they did that I called my father. He told me he would be there in a jiffy. While we waited for him to show up and watched the cars pass us by we realized we were hungry. Flat tires and worrying can work up an appetite. So Ariel suggested we order a pizza. We called Domino's and ordered a cheese pizza. As we waited for our pizza we got into a deep converstation about life, we even joked around. We all thought it was funny that we were stranded on a naval base, why didn't anyone try to help us? I cursed this night but Ariel and Melanie thought I would end up loving it. The pizza delivery guy showed up with our pizza and told us he had been driving past us all night and that this was his first roadside delivery. We told him we did it all the time. As he left another car pulled up, a familiar car, a wonderful, beautiful car. My dad had finally made it. He pulled out a bag of magical fixing tools and sealed up the hole on the original tire. He said to slowly and that he would be following us on our long rife home.

Knowing my dad was behind us I didn't think we had aanything else to worry about. We sang to the radio and made jokes about the night. We thought the bad as behid us. Then a terrible thing happened. As we entered the tunnel I could feel my car pulling towards one side and the steering became difficult. Worry began to creep up on me and then we heard the loudest pop ever. The car began to swerve. Good thing we were out of the tunnel right? Wrong, because we now were on the bridge.Melanie and Ariel both screamed.I pulled over and got out to look at the damage. There was no way we could fix this. I gave up at that moment and my father called a tow. In the end everyone got home safely. I was a mess, but Ariel and Melanie seemed to have the time of their life.

I now look back at that moment and laugh. At the time I thought it was the worst night of my life but in fact it was the best night ever. Ariel, Melanie, and I became so close that night and I knew after that we could handle anything together. No one else can say they had an adventure like that. I guess the moral of the story is to laugh when times get rough. There is no point in worrying because everything will work out in the end. And eventually those moments of bad luck will turn into the moments worth remembering.