The Frozen Car
Does anyone ever have that feeling of 'it could only happen to me'? Or do your friends often shake their heads at you and say 'only you'.
That is almost a daily occurrence for me. I am known among my friends and family as the one that things just happen to. Unintentional thing, often bordering on the ridiculous.
Take today for example.
It snowed outside, and temperatures dropped to around twenty or so.
No big deal, right? It happens all over the world. All over the US, even.
And with snow and frozen weather comes the chore of ridding your vehicle of all that accumulation before you can safely drive.
Here's the scenario. Six forty-five in the even. My brother says, “Will you please go to Sonic and get me a Chili Cheese Coney, fries and a Dr. Pepper?”
Mistake number one: I say “Sure!” After all, I hadn't peeked outside in hours; I hadn't realized my car was covered with snow. Or that underneath the snow was thick ice.
I curse my good natured-ness for about thirty five minutes while scraping and chipping at the ice while I slid around the car from side to side to tackle each of the front windows and the windshield. It wasn't made easy by the fact that I'd slipped on a pair of sweat pants for warmth; I hadn't thought of the repercussions of the fact that they were too big around the waist and I had to continually pull them back up with my snow crusted gloves. It wasn't pleasant, the way those small pieces of snow dropped from my gloves and down the back of my pants.
I couldn't help reminding myself that I was doing all this work so I could drive down the street about three blocks to get food that cost a measly six bucks. The preparation for getting there was a cold, wet ordeal that was taking three times the amount of time it would take for the quick trip. But I couldn't tell my brother no now, could I? He was using his birthday money to get the food. Teenage boys and their appetites, right? I was invested.
By the time I deemed the car drive-worthy, each of the front windows was mostly clear and the windshield had two head sized holes. Not ideal, but do-able. As long as I didn't get pulled over, as the rest of the car was still piled with snow, including the back window.
Next came a task that took another ten minutes to accomplish, though it really shouldn't have.
That task? Getting one of the doors open.
The driver's side proved impossible after several minutes of struggle because the lock itself was frozen inside somehow. I managed to get the key in eventually, but no amount of struggle would coerce it to turn. I finally gave up in fear that I'd snap the key off in the lock.
On the passenger side, they key slid in, and after a few more minutes of struggle.......it turned!
I was excited. My car wasn't a frozen fortress after all!
Until I tried to open it.
First, the thumb-push button had a thick coating of ice over it and around it. I pushed, I pulled I cursed.....nothing worked.
My mom came outside to stand on the porch, wondering what I was still doing in the driveway, and had watched just enough of the proceedings to be amused.
I was not too amused with her amusement.
Then I had a brilliant idea. In the absence of heat, what one other easily accessible element melts ice?
Water, of course.
My mother brought me a measuring cup full of water from the house (she was afraid to let me try to ascend the snowy porch until I was coming in for good- that might give a good idea of how well known I am for incidences).
First, I decided to try the driver side door again, now that I was armed with the almighty water. I doused the key lock with water, but it didn't help at all. Then I ran a stream of water around the edges of the door. Why? I don't know. It wouldn't help in the end since I couldn't get that door unlocked, anyway.
So, once again I moved to the passenger side door.
A splash of water soon had the thumb-button free, so I could push it in. But still the door wouldn't budge. Again I pulled and pushed and cursed, my mother once again looking down on me from the porch quite amused.
So of course I took the next logical step. I ran a stream of water around the edges of the door in an attempt to melt the ice.
And it worked.
Finally, finally, with a crunching, ice popping sound, I was able to pull the passenger door of the car open.
From there I entered, scooting across to the bench seat of my cold (and wet, since the passenger side leaks) car.
Too bad the heater doesn't work.
And in hindsight, the water wasn't such a good idea.
A few tries on the driver's side made it clear that the door wouldn't open from the inside, either. Even after the first few tries when I remembered to unlock it.
No problem, I thought. I'll just get out the same way I got in when I get home.
Ha! That was mistake number two.
So I drive to Sonic, scoot across the seat, get out of the passenger side (while people stared, of course), walked around the car and pushed the button on speaker to give my order. I ordered an extra drink- a cherry coke- for me, as my brother had offered to pay for it for going to all that trouble for his chili dog.
Then I crawl back into the car, scoot across the seat, and wait. And freeze, with no heater, of course.
When the employee brings me the food to the car, I have to motion her the passenger side. To my embarrassment, just like the driver's side, the window won't roll down. It had frozen again.
That should have been my first clue. She pulls the door open with some effort and hands the food over, makes a joke about the car still being snow covered, and takes the money. She closes the door for me, and I pull out.
Now, I only have to cross the street and drive a couple blocks, but here's where I think it went wrong.
Right there at the exit driveway for Sonic, there was a small fender bender caused by a little ice. Nothing major, but bad enough to keep several of us waiting for about ten minutes before we could pull out into the street.
Apparently, moisture will re-freeze in twenty degree weather in ten minutes or less.
I pull into my driveway and try to open the the driver's side door out of habit before remembering that I couldn't.
Okay. No big deal. I got in through the passenger side, I'll get out through the passenger side.
Or so I thought.
My mind couldn't process it at first. It was too impossible, too horrible, for me to believe it. I can't imagine what look I might have had on my face when I realized that both doors were solidly frozen shut.
For the third time of the evening I pushed, I pulled and I cursed, but it did no good.
I obviously wasn't getting out on my own, not from the inside.
I reached over and hit the horn a few times and waited anxiously for faces to appear out of the front door.
It took me a few repeats to get them to understand, and each time it sounded more ridiculous than the last.
“I'm stuck!” I tried yelling to where my mom stood on the porch.
Her face frowned in that universal “what'd you say?” grimace.
I sighed in frustration and said louder, this time gesturing toward to car door in a way that meant absolutely nothing but that I hoped she would understand. “I'm stuck! I can't get out!”
She stepped back into the house and shut the door just long enough for me to wonder if she'd decided it was my own problem, then she re-emerged with her jacket on. She slowly descended the porch stairs and walked up to the car.
She approached the passenger door, which was the side closest to the house, pressed her face to the window and said, “What?”
I couldn't help but roll my eyes. Or glare, just a little.
“I. Am. Stuck!”
“Oh,” she says. “Did you try to get out?”
Ladies and gentlemen......that's my mom. Maybe it helps explain me.
My mother went around trying each door, becoming more and more amused the longer the doors resisted opening. She seemed wholly unconcerned that I was slowly freezing to death.
She returned to the house for reinforcements. Namely, my brother.
Of course he did the same thing she did. He walked around the car and tried each door. They both seemed to have the compulsion to test my truthfulness in the matter, to make sure that I was well and truly stuck.
Then they stood there and looked at me. I looked back at them through the window that was icing up even worse with every minute.
Then my brother said, “Why don't you just try to get out?”
Great, I couldn't help thinking to myself. I'm screwed.
My mother and my brother embark on a rescue mission. They try everything either of them or I could think of.
More water, which just refroze after several minutes.
They used tools and sticks to try chipping around the doors.
They tried standing and staring.
They tried laughing about it, which didn't amuse me at all.
They tried pulling and kicking.
They even tried going inside to warm up and hoping that in the interim it would take care of itself.
Meanwhile, I sat in the car and scowled. I pouted. I cursed. I played with my phone and shivered. I lay across the seat and tried to kick the door- at which point I spilled my cherry Coke all over my too-big sweat pants.
For the first time in my life I personally watched cherry coke transform from liquid, to slush, to hardened ice crystals.
Finally, at long last- which translates to about forty-five minutes, when we were considering taking the humiliating step of calling someone in a uniform for help- my brother yelled “hurry up and try to roll down this window before it freezes again, I think I got the ice off!”
So I start the car again and hit the power button. It resisted at first, but finally, with a crackling of ice, the passenger side window rolled down.
Now to get out.
Here's the issue- I'm not a tiny woman. I'm a little more than large, in fact.
I was actually worried about getting through the window without some unseemly incident like getting stuck. I wanted to keep my dignity.
Well, I didn't get stuck, though it was a tight fit and an awkward and kind of painful twisting and turning and huffing.
Here's where I made mistakes three and four.
Number three- I went out head first and face down so I had no balance and no way to brace myself.
Number four- I forgot about my loose sweat pants.
So I avoided getting stuck, but I didn't keep my dignity.
I managed to get my whole upper body out of the window with no incident.
My brother even came down to assist me, though I suspect it was impatience for his food that prompted the helpfulness.
So I get myself out the window up to my hips, but I have nothing to hold on to. I promptly lose my slippery grip on the icy side of the car and fall forward.
I'm hanging straight down, my face against the lower part of the car door and the top of my head a few inches from the snow.
Inside, my feet fly up and hit the inside roof of the car. That is the only thing holding me up as I curse and scrabble with my hands on the ice to push myself up. Unfortunately, the ice on the outside of the car makes it impossible to get any kind of traction.
My mother is useless by now, because she is doubled over with laughter. My brother tries valiantly, but he is laughing too, and besides that, I'm not a light person, especially in my current head-down position.
Then.....IT happens.
I slip, and I just know I'm going to hit the ground. I don't fall, though the top of my head is now pressed into the ground, the snow up around my forehead.
But......my rear end and emerged from the window before my feet braced the inside roof to stop my. As that part of my body and slid out, it scraped against the top of the window, leaving a large scrape against my tail bone that I felt immediately. It still hurts, hours later.
But worse....... I felt a freezing draft.
While I had slid out of the window just enough further for my rear end to emerge, the top of the door had pressed so tightly against me that my too big sweat pants remained inside the car, the back of the waistband pulled up to my upper thighs.
My brother screamed a murderous scream, abandoned his efforts to help my by promptly dropping me to bang back against the car door, and bolted into the house.
My mother sat in the snow to give in to her hysterical laughter.
I hung upside down half in and half out of the car window, my bare white ass sticking up into the freezing air of the icy night air.
How mortifying.
I decided that I was on my own, and in a moment of desperation I wiggled and squirmed and made myself unbrace my feet against the roof of the car.
In a grunting, painful, scraping victory I thumped heavily into the snow face down.
Finally, I was out of the damn car.
I stood up and gathered my pants and my dignity, gathered my stuff from the car, rolled the window back up, and stalked into the house.
My mother laughed on the porch for another five minutes before she could get up and return to the house, where she is still, hours later, falling into hysterics whenever she looks at me. She has updated her MySpace and Face Book statuses to tell an edited version of the story.
My brother is still unable to make eye contact with me, though he did comment that his chili dog was cold when I knocked on his bedroom door to give it to him. He slammed the door shut before I could tell him exactly where he could stick his chili dog.
I threw away those damned sweatpants and took a nice hot shower. I wiped Cherry Coke off of my jacket and found one cherry in the left pocket.
I think I hate winter.
Fin
Home Stories Page Original Fiction
That is almost a daily occurrence for me. I am known among my friends and family as the one that things just happen to. Unintentional thing, often bordering on the ridiculous.
Take today for example.
It snowed outside, and temperatures dropped to around twenty or so.
No big deal, right? It happens all over the world. All over the US, even.
And with snow and frozen weather comes the chore of ridding your vehicle of all that accumulation before you can safely drive.
Here's the scenario. Six forty-five in the even. My brother says, “Will you please go to Sonic and get me a Chili Cheese Coney, fries and a Dr. Pepper?”
Mistake number one: I say “Sure!” After all, I hadn't peeked outside in hours; I hadn't realized my car was covered with snow. Or that underneath the snow was thick ice.
I curse my good natured-ness for about thirty five minutes while scraping and chipping at the ice while I slid around the car from side to side to tackle each of the front windows and the windshield. It wasn't made easy by the fact that I'd slipped on a pair of sweat pants for warmth; I hadn't thought of the repercussions of the fact that they were too big around the waist and I had to continually pull them back up with my snow crusted gloves. It wasn't pleasant, the way those small pieces of snow dropped from my gloves and down the back of my pants.
I couldn't help reminding myself that I was doing all this work so I could drive down the street about three blocks to get food that cost a measly six bucks. The preparation for getting there was a cold, wet ordeal that was taking three times the amount of time it would take for the quick trip. But I couldn't tell my brother no now, could I? He was using his birthday money to get the food. Teenage boys and their appetites, right? I was invested.
By the time I deemed the car drive-worthy, each of the front windows was mostly clear and the windshield had two head sized holes. Not ideal, but do-able. As long as I didn't get pulled over, as the rest of the car was still piled with snow, including the back window.
Next came a task that took another ten minutes to accomplish, though it really shouldn't have.
That task? Getting one of the doors open.
The driver's side proved impossible after several minutes of struggle because the lock itself was frozen inside somehow. I managed to get the key in eventually, but no amount of struggle would coerce it to turn. I finally gave up in fear that I'd snap the key off in the lock.
On the passenger side, they key slid in, and after a few more minutes of struggle.......it turned!
I was excited. My car wasn't a frozen fortress after all!
Until I tried to open it.
First, the thumb-push button had a thick coating of ice over it and around it. I pushed, I pulled I cursed.....nothing worked.
My mom came outside to stand on the porch, wondering what I was still doing in the driveway, and had watched just enough of the proceedings to be amused.
I was not too amused with her amusement.
Then I had a brilliant idea. In the absence of heat, what one other easily accessible element melts ice?
Water, of course.
My mother brought me a measuring cup full of water from the house (she was afraid to let me try to ascend the snowy porch until I was coming in for good- that might give a good idea of how well known I am for incidences).
First, I decided to try the driver side door again, now that I was armed with the almighty water. I doused the key lock with water, but it didn't help at all. Then I ran a stream of water around the edges of the door. Why? I don't know. It wouldn't help in the end since I couldn't get that door unlocked, anyway.
So, once again I moved to the passenger side door.
A splash of water soon had the thumb-button free, so I could push it in. But still the door wouldn't budge. Again I pulled and pushed and cursed, my mother once again looking down on me from the porch quite amused.
So of course I took the next logical step. I ran a stream of water around the edges of the door in an attempt to melt the ice.
And it worked.
Finally, finally, with a crunching, ice popping sound, I was able to pull the passenger door of the car open.
From there I entered, scooting across to the bench seat of my cold (and wet, since the passenger side leaks) car.
Too bad the heater doesn't work.
And in hindsight, the water wasn't such a good idea.
A few tries on the driver's side made it clear that the door wouldn't open from the inside, either. Even after the first few tries when I remembered to unlock it.
No problem, I thought. I'll just get out the same way I got in when I get home.
Ha! That was mistake number two.
So I drive to Sonic, scoot across the seat, get out of the passenger side (while people stared, of course), walked around the car and pushed the button on speaker to give my order. I ordered an extra drink- a cherry coke- for me, as my brother had offered to pay for it for going to all that trouble for his chili dog.
Then I crawl back into the car, scoot across the seat, and wait. And freeze, with no heater, of course.
When the employee brings me the food to the car, I have to motion her the passenger side. To my embarrassment, just like the driver's side, the window won't roll down. It had frozen again.
That should have been my first clue. She pulls the door open with some effort and hands the food over, makes a joke about the car still being snow covered, and takes the money. She closes the door for me, and I pull out.
Now, I only have to cross the street and drive a couple blocks, but here's where I think it went wrong.
Right there at the exit driveway for Sonic, there was a small fender bender caused by a little ice. Nothing major, but bad enough to keep several of us waiting for about ten minutes before we could pull out into the street.
Apparently, moisture will re-freeze in twenty degree weather in ten minutes or less.
I pull into my driveway and try to open the the driver's side door out of habit before remembering that I couldn't.
Okay. No big deal. I got in through the passenger side, I'll get out through the passenger side.
Or so I thought.
My mind couldn't process it at first. It was too impossible, too horrible, for me to believe it. I can't imagine what look I might have had on my face when I realized that both doors were solidly frozen shut.
For the third time of the evening I pushed, I pulled and I cursed, but it did no good.
I obviously wasn't getting out on my own, not from the inside.
I reached over and hit the horn a few times and waited anxiously for faces to appear out of the front door.
It took me a few repeats to get them to understand, and each time it sounded more ridiculous than the last.
“I'm stuck!” I tried yelling to where my mom stood on the porch.
Her face frowned in that universal “what'd you say?” grimace.
I sighed in frustration and said louder, this time gesturing toward to car door in a way that meant absolutely nothing but that I hoped she would understand. “I'm stuck! I can't get out!”
She stepped back into the house and shut the door just long enough for me to wonder if she'd decided it was my own problem, then she re-emerged with her jacket on. She slowly descended the porch stairs and walked up to the car.
She approached the passenger door, which was the side closest to the house, pressed her face to the window and said, “What?”
I couldn't help but roll my eyes. Or glare, just a little.
“I. Am. Stuck!”
“Oh,” she says. “Did you try to get out?”
Ladies and gentlemen......that's my mom. Maybe it helps explain me.
My mother went around trying each door, becoming more and more amused the longer the doors resisted opening. She seemed wholly unconcerned that I was slowly freezing to death.
She returned to the house for reinforcements. Namely, my brother.
Of course he did the same thing she did. He walked around the car and tried each door. They both seemed to have the compulsion to test my truthfulness in the matter, to make sure that I was well and truly stuck.
Then they stood there and looked at me. I looked back at them through the window that was icing up even worse with every minute.
Then my brother said, “Why don't you just try to get out?”
Great, I couldn't help thinking to myself. I'm screwed.
My mother and my brother embark on a rescue mission. They try everything either of them or I could think of.
More water, which just refroze after several minutes.
They used tools and sticks to try chipping around the doors.
They tried standing and staring.
They tried laughing about it, which didn't amuse me at all.
They tried pulling and kicking.
They even tried going inside to warm up and hoping that in the interim it would take care of itself.
Meanwhile, I sat in the car and scowled. I pouted. I cursed. I played with my phone and shivered. I lay across the seat and tried to kick the door- at which point I spilled my cherry Coke all over my too-big sweat pants.
For the first time in my life I personally watched cherry coke transform from liquid, to slush, to hardened ice crystals.
Finally, at long last- which translates to about forty-five minutes, when we were considering taking the humiliating step of calling someone in a uniform for help- my brother yelled “hurry up and try to roll down this window before it freezes again, I think I got the ice off!”
So I start the car again and hit the power button. It resisted at first, but finally, with a crackling of ice, the passenger side window rolled down.
Now to get out.
Here's the issue- I'm not a tiny woman. I'm a little more than large, in fact.
I was actually worried about getting through the window without some unseemly incident like getting stuck. I wanted to keep my dignity.
Well, I didn't get stuck, though it was a tight fit and an awkward and kind of painful twisting and turning and huffing.
Here's where I made mistakes three and four.
Number three- I went out head first and face down so I had no balance and no way to brace myself.
Number four- I forgot about my loose sweat pants.
So I avoided getting stuck, but I didn't keep my dignity.
I managed to get my whole upper body out of the window with no incident.
My brother even came down to assist me, though I suspect it was impatience for his food that prompted the helpfulness.
So I get myself out the window up to my hips, but I have nothing to hold on to. I promptly lose my slippery grip on the icy side of the car and fall forward.
I'm hanging straight down, my face against the lower part of the car door and the top of my head a few inches from the snow.
Inside, my feet fly up and hit the inside roof of the car. That is the only thing holding me up as I curse and scrabble with my hands on the ice to push myself up. Unfortunately, the ice on the outside of the car makes it impossible to get any kind of traction.
My mother is useless by now, because she is doubled over with laughter. My brother tries valiantly, but he is laughing too, and besides that, I'm not a light person, especially in my current head-down position.
Then.....IT happens.
I slip, and I just know I'm going to hit the ground. I don't fall, though the top of my head is now pressed into the ground, the snow up around my forehead.
But......my rear end and emerged from the window before my feet braced the inside roof to stop my. As that part of my body and slid out, it scraped against the top of the window, leaving a large scrape against my tail bone that I felt immediately. It still hurts, hours later.
But worse....... I felt a freezing draft.
While I had slid out of the window just enough further for my rear end to emerge, the top of the door had pressed so tightly against me that my too big sweat pants remained inside the car, the back of the waistband pulled up to my upper thighs.
My brother screamed a murderous scream, abandoned his efforts to help my by promptly dropping me to bang back against the car door, and bolted into the house.
My mother sat in the snow to give in to her hysterical laughter.
I hung upside down half in and half out of the car window, my bare white ass sticking up into the freezing air of the icy night air.
How mortifying.
I decided that I was on my own, and in a moment of desperation I wiggled and squirmed and made myself unbrace my feet against the roof of the car.
In a grunting, painful, scraping victory I thumped heavily into the snow face down.
Finally, I was out of the damn car.
I stood up and gathered my pants and my dignity, gathered my stuff from the car, rolled the window back up, and stalked into the house.
My mother laughed on the porch for another five minutes before she could get up and return to the house, where she is still, hours later, falling into hysterics whenever she looks at me. She has updated her MySpace and Face Book statuses to tell an edited version of the story.
My brother is still unable to make eye contact with me, though he did comment that his chili dog was cold when I knocked on his bedroom door to give it to him. He slammed the door shut before I could tell him exactly where he could stick his chili dog.
I threw away those damned sweatpants and took a nice hot shower. I wiped Cherry Coke off of my jacket and found one cherry in the left pocket.
I think I hate winter.
Fin
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