|
|
Posted by David Sherman [72.47.9.228] on Friday, February 25, 2011 at 12:27:29 :
Last night about half past midnight I hear tires spinning outside my house so I get up and look out the window. There's a narrow driveway between my house and the neighbors and it has about a foot of snow on it. Some guy I've never seen before is trying to drive in there in a big American car. He miscalculated the turn and is sort of sideways in the drive way. As I watch, he applies steady pressure to the accelerator with the transmission in reverse until the car is thoroughly settled into the snow and well stuck. Then he shifts into drive and does the same thing. Once he's down as deep as he can get and has polished the snow to a good hard glaze, he starts trying to shift quickly between reverse and drive but his shifting is precisely out of sync with the rocking of the car so that he's not creating any rocking motion at all.
Not to worry, though, he has a set of those "tow truck in a bag" gizmos that they sell in mail order catalogs. He gets out of the car, and unfolds some narrow strips of corrugated plastic. How they are supposed to provide any traction in snow, I don't know, but he's got them and now they're going to save him. I notice he's coughing constantly and walking a bit unsteadily. Perhaps he's just back from the bar and is trying to park at the wrong house. The car has a paper temporary tag in the window so I can't tell if he's from around here or not.
So, he gets out his plastic strips, stuffs them under the back of the rear wheels gets back in the car and no doubt expects to back right out. The wheels continue to spin. I should mention that it's the front wheels that are spinning because it's a front wheel drive car, but he stuffed the plastic strips under the rear wheels. Now I'm really laughing. He gets out again, walks back and pulls the plastic strips out. I figure he's realized the problem by now. Nope. He stuffs them under the front of the rear wheels, gets back in the car and tries to go forward. The front wheels spin some more.
Maybe he figures it out eventually because at some point I look out again and he's got the plastic stuffed behind the front wheels, but they're so well down in the snow now that they don't do any good.
Personally I've never had any luck with trying to stuff anything down in a hole in the snow next to a spinning tire. You have to dig the snow out. Maybe he doesn't have a shovel. Maybe he doesn't see mine propped up by the side of the house. I should get up, get dressed, and go out and help him. After all, I've been enjoying the show for half an hour. I go back to bed. I hear more spinning and coughing. I hope he doesn't have a heart attack. This morning the car's gone. Maybe he called AAA.
Follow Ups: