I live in Indiana. I don't know if you, reader, are anywhere near Indiana or follow the Indiana news (because everything cool happens here, doncha know?). In case you missed the headlines, we recently got a good deal of snow. Twelve to thirteen inches worth of snow fell and drifted, making roads ridiculous. School has been out in my city for the entire week, which I'm pretty sure wouldn't happen even if the apocalypse had an official start date for next Thursday. It has just been quite bad.
I live practically downtown. As a result, I have to park at the rear of my house. I get to the drive from an alley. Normally that isn't an issue, but add thirteen inches of snow and that gets a bit tricky. Plows don't generally come through alleys in my area (do they anywhere??), so this never got plowed. It got packed down and iced over, but never plowed.
Yesterday, my husband was required to be at work. He naturally got stuck in evil alley of death. We shoveled and moved and shoveled and moved until he was clear and on his way.
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| ***Dramatization. Not actually my alley. |
He got stuck once on the way back in the alley after work, but some friendly guys passing gave him a push.
But what truly blew was when my husband attempted to leave for the library (and damn it! I just remembered we never returned the movies so now we have late fees! Gah!). There happens to be a pothole at the end of our drive, sort of off center. My husband hit the pothole and I have been pissed off ever since.
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| ***Not a dramatization. That is my van at the bottom. That's me looking on. |
Stuck in a pothole with his left front tire with his nose in the alley, we try to dig him out, but the alley by now is four inches of solid ice. And we are also in a pothole, so pretty pointless. We can't get it to go forward or backward. We've tried everything else we can think of, and only managed to sink further. Hubby went into the house and came back with a garden trowel. Seriously. That was the best idea we had. And it did help. We managed to get the van forward out of the pothole.
FOR WHATEVER REASON, my husband did NOT have the foresight that the back tires would follow the path of the front. You guessed it. Bang. Left hind tire is now stuck, and that is a pain for a front wheel drive van. Not only that, but now we are blocking the entire alley and no one can get through in either direction.
We rocked that sucker and after twenty minutes almost had it out. We were at the pivotal moment. One more push would do it.......and then the engine died. Yay? The puppy (and by puppy I mean engine) will turn over, but it won't catch to actually start it. Like maybe it isn't getting fuel or something. I don't know. I don't speak car. I speak human. And human cusses quite a lot at a time like this.
A neighbor adds useless advice. "Try backing it out." If my vehicle would start, perhaps that might be useful, kind stranger. I call my dad and ask him to help. He shows up, gets stuck a bit (in his truck), and tries to jump us. No change. Gets some starter fluid from a nearby gas station. Some change. Almost starts, but no cigar (I don't condone smoking anyway). And he gives up because by now it is night and it is COLD! Not much to be done but to call a tow. Now it needs repaired anyway.
We head inside and call the two main companies that do towing in our area. Both refuse to come out, because the van is located in an alley. We get this other place on the line, only to learn they can't come out until the next day at least. Their tow truck is being serviced. Really? Grr...so we decide to just wait until morning.
This morning dawns and we call up our mechanic and tell him what happened and that our towing choice (not much of a choice, huh?) is going to be bringing it by in a few. "Don't worry about it, I have a company I usually use," says our mechanic, "but it'll take him two or three hours to get over there." As it is 8:30 in the morning, we don't see this as a problem. Mechanic says he can probably get it in today at least to look at it and tell us what is up. Cool. Tow guy will call before he shows.
Four or five hours later, no call, no tow. So we called the mechanic and the guy says tow man came by to access the alley and decided he needed his big truck, which was out on a job. He'll call when he's on his way.
Still no call and the mechanic is about to close. He says he'll keep in touch with the mechanic for us and relay the information. Forget that. Hubby calls up the tow company directly, only to find out they came by earlier and decided that they couldn't help us. I especially like the part where the called and told me so I wasn't sitting around with my thumb up my butt, waiting for a tow that wasn't coming. That was good business, that was.
SO...we called the original guy we had planned to use back and practically begged him to come out. He did, was there within an hour, did the job in less than ten minutes with little trouble, and got tipped accordingly. And THAT is how a business should be done. Phew!
After 26 hours of ordeal, we only managed to get our vehicle to the mechanic. Actually, that's assuming the tow guy didn't just steal our van. That would be my luck.
To be continued...*dun dun DUNNNN!*
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