There are better and worse ways to be unlucky. The gray plastic case dangling from the bottom of my car would have been far less an issue in the areas I drive 95% of the time, within the city of Buffalo. Had I discovered this there, I’d have left the car and walked home. The walk would have been long, but feasible. Maybe I’d found a bus. Or a friend.

Except here, I was in Albion, an hour’s drive away, for my daughter’s soccer tournament. I was fortunate that… whatever this was… hadn’t made its descent off the bottom of my car until I arrived, leaving me to discover it in a parking lot instead of the snowed-in side of a highway.

I was thus participating in a quintessential experience of those of us who live in the northeastern United States and drive old cars: the salt eventually claims something for the street. Usually it’s the exhaust system. This is something else.

I meet most of my unfortunate circumstances with numbness. And so I stared at this gray box in the same unfeeling way, before deciding to shepherd my daughter to her game. Thankfully the coach is her dear friend’s father, and her friend’s mother is lovely too. I describe what happened, and they took my daughter so I could deal with my car. This is lucky too.

Numbness doesn’t provide me any clarity about what to do next, nor does it tell me what this is. I do not know what to do, but I know something has to be done and it is going to have to be done by me.

My car is 13 years old. I had jumper cables and an air pump in my car. I did not have bungee cords, rope, an errant cat5 cable, or anything I could tie. I call my husband. I videochat my dad. He’s not sure what it is either, but some mutual googling and we figure out it’s the charcoal evaporation canister. Long story short: it’s part of the emissions control.

And now it’s dangling by its own tubes and wires.

My husband googles around and discovers that I’m out of towing range for our insurance but I’m also only a mile away from auto and hardware stores. That’s an astonishing piece of luck; I’ve spent an hour driving through the middle of nowhere. He’s willing to come rescue me, but I’m not sure he needs to.

I’m small enough that I fit under the car. I look at the gray box. Everything is still connected. I didn’t have a check-engine light, which I would if it were damaged. OK. I just need to string this thing back up… somehow. The mounts had rusted to absolute nonexistence. I start looking for parts of the frame that I could hang something from, so I have an idea of how long I need the straps to be. I find three potential mounting points.

There was a sidewalk all the way to Advanced Auto Parts. It was covered in inches of ice, but I wasn’t walking in the street. Numb-finger texting and penguin-walking, I admit to my husband that I’m feeling overwhelmed – work’s been rough, another thing I’m in charge of has been rough, my country has been rough, and now this. He tells me I’m doing great.

The store had everything I needed, including helpful employees. Back at the car, the sun fully faded, I set up the light from the air pump and a newly acquired flashlight. I had a half-second of panic when I couldn’t find my pocketknife. I would have swore was in the center console. The box of bungee cords was zip-tied closed, and useless if I couldn’t open it. Then I remembered the knife in my wallet – seriously. It was a gift from a friend; I text him every time I use it. I text him again. With bungee cords in hand, I crawled back under the car. Rust crumbled into my eyes as a I tried to hook the cord. I get up, let my eyes water, think about why eye protection is standard safety gear. I blink out the rust. That could have been bad.

But it wasn’t.

I’m never fully sure a plan is going to work until after it’s done. I like certainty more than engineered best-guesses, but you have to do the best you can with what you got. I rigged the canister back against the spare tire compartment. Close enough. I get up, adrenaline coursing through me. I walk back to the school, trying doors until I find the one that opens and leads me to where they are playing.

I show a photo to my daughter’s friend’s mom. She’s impressed, and tells me so. People expect women to fix cars on the side of the road about as often as they expect the Spanish Inquisition – which is to say, much more so these days, but not absolutely often. My daughter’s friend’s family readily agree to take her back home so she can stay through the tournament, and if my car breaks down she’s not on the side of the road with me. I know she’s going to be safe. I had confidence that I would be too. I watch a game, and then start back home.

The country roads are dark and unfamiliar. Bungee cords aren’t regulation fasteners. Slow and steady. My cell phone battery was close to death, so I plug it into the car charger instead of the audio jack. Only the engine’s purr keeps me company. It’s too high pitched. It also is running. I keep going. I pull over every time someone is behind me, letting them pass. I smell something burning twice, fearful it was the cords against the exhaust. No. Everything was as I rigged it. Some people have wood-burning stoves, and I have anxiety.

I felt like a rock in a stream on the Thruway, all the cars passing around me. At no point did I hear dragging.

And so I got home.

It worked.

A few days prior the car acquired its first rust hole. My son opened the car door and pieces of the bottom edge crumbled in the parking lot of his afterschool program. I grieved it – here was evidence that something which had been reliable was no longer going to be fully so. It is disintegrating, and I am going to have to deal with it. Here was what once was a reliable and certain circumstance. And now? Breaking. I need to cope with it – be it fixing, or making something new. I do not fully know. I’ll be figuring it out as I go. I will need other people, as I always do.

And this is not the only situation where that is true.