Somewhere Along the Way

My ability to keep up with expensive electronics is less than awesome. So in an effort to maintain my track record of costly forgetfulness I lost the electronic key to our rental car on our first evening out in Ybor City. This forced me to abandon the car and catch a ride back to the hotel in a uhaul cargo van full of drunk skateboarders, wild times!
The next morning....mmm, afternoon, I caught a cab back down to deal with the mess I had left. This meant getting the car towed to the closest dealership to purchase a new key and have it programmed, two hundred bucks. Not sure what the tow cost yet but the experience was surely more valuable than the burn marks on the card.
Steve was the driver who picked the car and I up. He was a bit slow to warm up, though once he got going it was non stop amazement that came out if his mouth. Steve had been a military man who parachuted, hungover, into Grenada on some mission or another. During this little fiasco one of his band of brothers got hit by a sniper. Being the man he is Steve hopped into action, springing in to save his comrade. He took three shots in doing so. One grazed his left shoulder and two blasted into his lower abdomen, almost "blowing off his pecker" as he put it. In the end Steve saved his buddy and lived to fight another day himself. Though with those injuries the government no longer wanted him fighting for them. Seems a close call to the pecker makes you a combat risk. So it was back to the states for this hero. Where he found gainful employment in a factory, what perks! It was in that factory that his trail of bad luck sent him into the path of a run away one ton bundle of cardboard that pretty much crushed him. Broke his collar bone, crushed his sternum, broke off his lowest right rib, broke his arm, and crushed his right leg. If that doesn't put him in the misery hall of fame then having his wife bowled over by a car a year later surely should. That accident didn't kill her either but it did leave her with enough brain damage to get her a permanent spot on the short bus.
Now Steve spends his days rescuing retards like myself who were actually born with good sense though never figured out how to use it.
I try not to complain about my mental handicap. A tart ass lemon can be made into one hell of a sweet refreshment with a little work. With that being said Steve should be starting up a lemonade juice bar franchise. He sure as shit straightened out my sour situation, both physically and mentally. Twice retired and still saving people. Good to know that sort of sweet strength, bravery, and positivity still live on such a cynical Lemon.