SoapZone Community Message Board

I was supposed to be off today but "M" (85 year old firecracker), who missed all last week with a sore leg, missed yesterday and today because of car problems. So I agreed to go in this afternoon.

We have a (barely) two car garage that I pull into and Dad backs into. I'm on the right and Dad is on the left, so our driver's side doors both open in the middle of the garage. Dad is by far the superior driver of the two of us...if I had to back into the garage, I'd probably knock my rearview mirror off every few weeks <g>. Or I could do like my mom did once and knock the garage slightly off its foundation (she did that backing out).

Along with our (barely) two car garage, we have a driveway that's (barely) one car wide. It's short and straight and people STILL have trouble backing out of it. In 40 years of driving, I've gone off it at least a dozen times myself, though usually I can easily right myself.

Not today :-(

Today--a day I wasn't even supposed to work--I was backing out and didn't turn the steering wheel far enough to the left. Next thing I knew, I had both the front right AND rear right tires in the lawn, which has about 2' of snow right now. I tried pulling forward...nothing. I tried backing up more...nothing. I tried "rocking" the car (alternating between inching forward and inching backward) but the car was going NOWHERE. So I got out and tried digging the tires on the right side out but I couldn't get too far. I also threw down some salt. We're currently out of kitty litter, which most people around here use when they need traction. And of course after being inside for almost the entire month of January (except for church on Sundays), Dad was out. I called him anyways to see if he had any ideas; he suggested rocking the car (which I'd already done) and said he was on his way home.

After being outside in 20° for about 15 minutes, getting nowhere, I called my store manager to say I'd be a little late. She took it with her usual ill grace. Then a neighbor who's also a friend came down our road. She stopped to see if I needed help and she took a shovel and helped me dig a little. We were making zero progress but then the neighbor across the street came over to see if he could do anything. Now I may have to turn in my (non-existent) feminist card here but I was MORE than happy to turn over my stuck car problem to the big, strapping (younger) man <g>. He was debating trying to use his monster pick up truck to pull me out of the snow when a slightly bigger truck with a plow attached came down the street. Neighbor Dude flagged him down and he said he had a strap and would pull my car out.

Except...

There was no place on the back of my car to easily attach the strap. Neighbor Dude went to get a rope from his house (the strap was too wide to go through the narrow hook just INSIDE the rear hatch), but first he asked if I had a rug that might give the left front tire traction when he tried to pull the car forward. I got the rug, Neighbor Dude shoved it under the tire, got in my car, gunned it...the rug went spinning around the tire and eventually was thrown out the back of the car. Which was actually pretty amusing.

The first effort with the strap attached to the rope attached to my vehicle failed when the strap came untied. At this point, Dad was home; he tried digging out the car a little more and "supervised" (as parents like to do) as Neighbor Dude and Plow Guy tried again...and once again, everything came untied. The third time, Plow Guy wrapped his strap around my left rear tire. Neighbor Dude got behind the wheel of my car, the plow truck started pulling...and somehow the car went FURTHER into the lawn. Now instead of sitting parallel to the driveway, it was at a 45° angle, with the front of the car pointing at the driveway. But this time, Neighbor Dude thought he could pull forward...and somehow, miraculously, he did, and he got my car unstuck.

I'm so incredibly grateful for Lady Neighbor, Neighbor Dude, Plow Guy and Dad for helping me get my car unstuck. I had a few moments' concern on the ride to work because as I accelerated, the car started to vibrate. Dad, realizing he needed gas anyways, followed me partway to work and saw me turn into a parking lot so I could shut my car off and then turn it back on again. Hey, it sometimes works with computers! But no...it shuddered all the way to work whenever I went above 35 MPH. Luckily the speed limit for most of the drive at that point was 35 MPH or under. At work, SM didn't even bother asking me what happened or how I was; instead, she launched right into a story about how the back door was frozen shut Monday morning and she had to enter through the front door, which set off an alarm (long story). After she left, I was talking to my co-worker for the night ("H") who told me maybe Plow Guy somehow jerked a tire out of alignment when he pulled my car out. So then I spent the entire drive home worrying about losing a tire mid-drive. BUT...on the way home, there was no vibration. When I got home and mentioned it to Dad, he told me when he was following me, he noticed my right rear tire had several large chunks of snow in it. The snow must've dropped off or was dissolved by the salt in the parking lot (it certainly wasn't melted off by warmer weather), thus making for a smooth ride home.

Is it spring yet? I don't love spring but we could use a good thaw.