So, yesterday I go to return a saddle I borrowed from a perfect stranger. In a perfectly strange house with a perfectly strange driveway. (Might I add: a perfectly long, rocky, new driveway with edges that dropped steeply into soggy, muddy pits of despair...). I was, as instructed, to leave the saddle on the back porch because said perfect stranger would not be home. Sounds easy enough?
Oh, but you underestimate my ability to turn perfectly normal driving conditions into something from Legally Blond. Seriously.
So, I pull up the long, narrow, winding driveway with no turn-around and steep edges (can I make this sound any more like it's NOT my fault?) and put the saddle on the back porch as directed. I then decide that this particular area has a smaller ledge and because the frozen ground looks a little more stable, would be an excellent spot to pull off the driveway and turn around. And we all see where this is going, right? I'm sure I don't even need to say it, but I will anyway because ALL great stories start with..."And there I was: baby in the car seat..."
In order to see what I was doing I chose to back off the driveway into the, again, very stable-looking area to turn around. Three inches of clearance beneath my car coupled with low-profile tires and rear-wheel drive left me sunk to the rims and peeling out in a complete stranger's yard. Right on. There's nothing cooler than coming home and finding some half-wit with her car buried in your yard and a toddler screaming in the back seat, right? So, my initial panic set in and I called Todd at home (who was being amazing and cooking dinner while I had "just left for a minute" to drop this frickin' saddle off.) I couldn't bare admitting to him that I had, YET AGAIN, gotten myself into a sticky situation requiring chains, snatch blocks, a tractor and many, many more people, so I hung up before he answered. (Also, I would have called my dad, but only as a last resort, since the last time he pulled me out it did take chains, snatch blocks, a tractor and many, many more people.) Anyway, determined to get out of this by myself, I rocked back and forth in the car until I got enough traction and speed to launch me back on to the driveway. Not a HUGE whole, but certainly not unnoticeable...
In my infinite wisdom I attempt to pull off the other side of the driveway, putting my front tires in the pit of despair, leaving my back tires (since it is rear-wheel drive) on the gravel to heave me out. Well, that didn't work and I just started burning out on their driveway. I managed to get all four tires back up on the driveway and backed the entire way down the driveway and got away from there as fast as I could. I haven't gotten any calls regarding my insurance covering damages I did to their property, so I think it'll be OK. We'll see.
And to think, I didn't even like the saddle!
It's ok Rikki, I jumped out of my car one night when getting ready to go home from work. I was, of course, the last person there, and I had to run back to the back door to get something. I came back and my car was gone. Apparently I'd already put it in gear, and not realized it, so it drove itself across the street and buried itself in frozen mud. I had no choice but to call my brother-in-law to come help me after I tried and tried and tried to rock myself out of there. And wouldn't you know it, there's NO metal to hook a tow rope to on my car? EXCEPT for the little metal latch that holds the trunk lid down.
ReplyDeleteI feel your pain, Sister!!
We have GOT to get you a more user-friendly car. ;-)
ReplyDelete