This summer, my brother had the bold idea to drive to Avalon, New Jersey to see my aunt and uncle in their beach house one last time before they moved down south. On the face of it, there was nothing bold about visiting family, but my brother is always in a rush, so the plan was to leave in the evening, arrive in the morning, visit, pick up some memorabilia my brother wanted, and go right back. With traffic and stops, the drive would be close to 24 hours total. I was all for the challenge, so I agreed and the plan was set . . . sort of.
While my brother is always in a rush, he’s also always busy. We had planned to leave on a Wednesday, then Wednesday became Thursday, and Thursday became Friday. All the while, I was on standby waiting for the call to go meet him. I like to think I handle changing plans and the frustration that comes from it well, but Thursday was a trying day. After cancelling Wednesday, he told me Thursday would happen for sure and I should plan to drive to my mom’s and meet him there in the late afternoon. I woke up that morning and prepared myself mentally for the drive ahead. At around 3:00PM that afternoon, I hopped in my Miata, ready to get this over with.
Did I mention it was summer? Well I’ll mention it again because that’s an incredibly important detail. Summer in South Carolina is no joke, especially on the coast. The air is thick with heat and moisture, almost oppressively so if you’re out too long. For most people driving, this is a relatively insignificant issue because cars now have this amazing technology called “air conditioning”. My car, the Miata, shared in this technology, but because of it’s age (31 years old), the poor thing had a difficult time replenishing cold, breathable air into the cabin. Driving that day, I could literally feel the car heaving to provide some degree of climate control. The cold air would come in waves, at first at reasonable intervals (two minutes at a time) and then would slowly reduce as the car grew hotter and hotter. 
After a few miles, I felt my odds of survival were low if I didn’t get a cool beverage to supplement the strained A/C. I decided that McDonald’s would be the source of my refuge and into the drive-thru I pulled. There was quite a long line of cars, but they usually move fast. I found solace in the fact that the car in front of me also happened to be a Miata. There is a certain bond that exists between Miata drivers, much like Jeep drivers. I didn’t have the opportunity to pop-up my headlights towards him (as is the tradition) because I was behind him, but there was a certain degree of tension between us.
My A/C continued to struggle for life and the line made no forward progress for what felt like hours. In the meantime, I listened to music and would inadvertently make eye-contact with my Miata brother through his rearview mirror. After a few glances and still no movement in the line ahead, the driver got out of his car and started walking towards me. Turns out his name was Reilly and he was curious about my car: the year, mileage, what I had done to it, and what I wanted to do to it. I answered all his questions and asked the same about his car.
We exchanged contact information and he added my to a group chat of other fellow Miata enthusiasts in the area, and returned to his car to await his fate with everyone else. After another 10 minutes (or years) the line finally started lurching forward and when he went to order, he messaged me that the cause of the delay was due to the store only having one employee working. I then ordered myself a large beverage and some McNuggets (because I was hungry and it seemed like the easiest thing for one employee to make). As I made my way out of the drive-thru line, my brother called me and said we needed to reschedule to Friday, so I just made my merry way home.
I wasn’t mad at the change in schedule because everything leading up to that point almost felt fated. If we had left the previous day or I left at 3:05 or I went to a gas station for sustenance, I never would’ve found myself parked behind my car’s sibling and had a conversation about the experiences of parenting an old Mazda, with little to no A/C, in the Charleston heat. While that didn’t make me any less sweaty or return any of the time spent in that drive thru (I swear I was there for 40 minutes), I left feeling connected to another human being in a way I didn’t expect.
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