When Mike Pizzo pulls his AAA Cincinnati tow truck into thegas station parking lot in Springdale, his customer is waiting.

        Debbie Sayre of Hamilton has locked her keys in her van. Using an inflatable door wedge and a “reach it” tool resembling an extended coat hanger, Mr. Pizzo has the door open in minutes.

        “Thank you so much,” Ms. Sayre says as Mr. Pizzo puts his tools back in his truck.

        It's about 8:50 p.m., and Mr. Pizzo, a AAA emergency road service employee, is well into his 2-10 p.m. shift on a Tuesday night. “I like second shift a lot,” says the Bridgetown resident, who has been tinkering with cars since he was a kid. “There's not so much traffic, and you don't get as many angry people who broke down on the way to work.”

        Mr. Pizzo's next call is on Toulon Drive in nearby Springfield Township.

        “This is when it gets to be fun — finding streets in the dark,” he says as he searches for the short, four-block street.

        Walter Dunn comes out of his home when the tow truck pulls up.

        “It turns over, but it won't fire,” Mr. Dunn says of his 1989 Chevy S-10 pickup with 130,000 miles on the odometer.

        Mr. Pizzo tries to start it, and after listening for a few seconds, he says “(Bad) fuel pump, I'd just have to guess.”

        It's about 9:30 p.m. when he hooks up the pickups to tow it nine miles to Mr. Dunn's mechanic in College Hill.

        “It's definitely a job that you either like it or hate it,” Mr. Pizzo says before he checks with the dispatcher for his next job. “I love working on cars. I love driving. I like being out of the office. I like helping people.”

        At about 10:30 p.m., Mr. Pizzo's next call takes him across the Ohio River to the parking lot of a United Dairy Farmers store in Fort Wright.

        “It's my clutch,” says Melissa Lemmink of Highland Heights. Her 1993 Toyota Celica died while she was out Christmas shopping, she says.

        After starting the car and trying the clutch, Mr. Pizzo confirms Ms. Lemmink's diagnosis. He tows the car to a mechanic on Harrison Avenue in Westwood, where he relies on years of experience to safely back the Celica into a tight parking space.

        “After you do it a few times, you get used to it,” Mr. Pizzo said.

        Mr. Pizzo does have one gripe.

        “People don't pay a lot of attention to the (flashing yellow beacon) lights that are on these trucks,” he said. “People just see them so often they've gotten immune to seeing them. (While working on a busy road,) you're having to look over your shoulder every two minutes.”

        “I've had a mirror ripped off this truck on the side of the highway,” Mr. Pizzo says. “People not paying attention — not realizing how close they get to you.”

        It's usually busier for him during warm weather because more people are out and about. But the response time (AAA strives to respond to a road service call within 30 minutes) is slower in the winter because of the often bad road conditions.

        Friday and Saturday nights can be busy year-round with people in bars and taverns who lose their keys or lock them inside their vehicles, says Mr. Pizzo.

        “We won't open it if they've had too much to drink,” he notes.

        After midnight, Mr. Pizzo's final call takes him back across the river to the Taylor Mill Road overpass at Interstate 75, where a van sits alongside the roadway. A broken ball joint is the culprit.

        The owner wants the van towed to his Fort Wright residence. But when Mr. Pizzo arrives, he's confronted with an even tougher challenge: the owner wants the vehicle placed at the end of very narrow driveway alongside his house. A public telephone near the driveway entrance doesn't allow much turning radius.

        It takes 15 minutes — including several starts, stops, and restarts — but Mr. Pizzo performs some intricate maneuvering to back the van up the driveway with no damage to the vehicle or the surrounding landscaping.

        “I love tight squeezes,” he says.

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