A Fun (Maybe Not) Story

[Guest Ethan Glover]

I decided I probably wouldn't be able to tell this story anywhere else, but I wanted to, maybe you'll enjoy it or find it interesting, but here goes nevertheless:

 

Last night I was in my schools library using their internet because my own is slow (satellite) when at 4PM they cut the lights out for a few seconds like they were closing. It's odd because they're supposed to close at 6, but I figure it's Friday and anything I've got left to do I can do at home. As I'm leaving someone tells me they're closing because the weather is getting bad. I tell them OK, but I'm not worried about it because it was fine 2 hours earlier when I went in. (I would find out later that the state weather service was recommending nobody drive until the roads had been taken care of by the salt trucks.)

 

When I get outside I find it's super icy, and I have a hard time standing up. It had apparently started drizzling even though the temperature was below freezing. (It must have been right around 32 degrees, otherwise it should have been sleet or snow.) Anyways, I skate down to the jeep I'm borrowing because my Malibu is broken down, scrape the ice off the windows and head out. I skid a little in the parking lot, but I'm still not worried, all I have to do is drive slow.

 

Driving in town I stick to the main roads because with heavy traffic it stays pretty clear. When I get to the freeway, I get there just as a salt truck is passing so I stay behind him. Luckily, when I get to the next highway where I have to turn off, he turns off too. So I follow him down that road. As we're moving along at 20mph in a 55mph zone I see a car in the ditch like every 100 yards. It seems if I weren't behind this truck I'd probably be having a lot a trouble. There were a few instances where we came to a long line of cars stopped due to a crash and the salt truck (apparently using communication with police) was able to pass without worry of oncoming traffic. So I just keep following him having an easy time.

 

Now, I could have kept following until I got to my gravel road, but if I go to that road the main way there's this huge hill with 90 degree turns and a very deep ditch at the bottom. There's no way I'm going that way. So after thinking about it I head in the back way, leave my salt truck friend and head down a still untreated road. As I'm going along at 20 mph I'm still doing fine. Only one person passes me in a fairly large truck, so be it.

 

On this icy road I again pass a car pulled over or wrecked in a ditch every 100 yards or so and even had to pass a large tractor-trailer truck who had obviously stopped for the night on this road without much of a shoulder. Turns out, he was very smart to do so, because just beyond him are two very steep hills. With a lot of effort and by not slamming on the accelerator (some people did this and skidded all over the road getting up) I just picked my moments where I had grip and inched up and made it up and over the first hill. On the second one, I get behind that truck that had passed me. There was a car on the side of the road in the middle of the hill and he had stopped behind it to let someone in the other lane pass. Because he stopped, this of course meant he was stuck. After a lot of slipping around he found himself finally in the other lane but unable to move forward. So he backs up all the way down the hill, and I patiently wait for him to do his thing. I knew he was trying to pick up speed again, and he did. He made it all the way.

 

Once he was up, I notice there's a line of cars on the hill behind me waiting their turn to take a shot at this hill. So I put this Jeep in 4-wheel drive (this is a newer model driven more by electronics than by the driver so it's hard to control in the ice) and start slipping and sliding. As I get over into the other lane, I see the guy from the truck running down the road on the side. Curious, I wait for him to pass me, and he tells me to back all the way up and get a running start. As he's talking to me I point out a car coming over the hill in the other direction. This guy apparently doesn't know how dangerous things are because he's moving at like 50 mph. Seeing us, he swerves onto the side of the road, into the ditch, catches air going down the hill and slides the rest of the way. Well shit, I suppose I'll just slide on back to the other side and park it.

 

As I'm doing that, this guy who almost just got himself and a few other people killed puts his car in reverse and comes straight back up the hill without a problem and parks on a road further up. =/ Maybe I should have went backwards too! But to continue this story, the guy from the truck asks me and the woman in front of me (the car we're trying to pass) if we want a ride. Alright, sounds good to me, I'll just leave the Jeep there until I can get it out which like all the other cars all over the place will probably be some time.

 

So we get in this guys truck and head off, as we get to the turn off to my gravel road I tell him I'll walk from there. I say it's not far, but it's actually about 3 miles. No big deal though, I wasn't going to freeze to death, and I'm not about to let this guy drive on gravel with the pavement as bad as it was. So I get to walking, and actually jog for about half the time just to save on time. As I'm passing a small graveyard I figure I'll call my parents at home to see if everyone made it back. I got my step-mom, asked if she made it (yes), and when she asked where I was I said I was walking on the gravel road.

 

This apparently made her mad. She asked where the jeep was, and started yelling at me with all the things I should have done. "They said 30 minutes ago not to drive!" (I tried to say the school kicked me out, I got interrupted.) "You shouldn't have gone in the back way!" (I tried to mention the sharp curves and steep hill, I got interrupted.) "You should have waited until they cleared the road!" (I tried to explain how long that was going to take, I got interrupted.) "We can't just..." (I interrupt and say I'm not calling for a ride, I didn't want them to try and drive.) "I know, we can't just leave the jeep there." (I don't remember what I tried to say here, but didn't even get a syllable out.) "I'll see you at home!" (I hung up.)

 

Earlier that day, I had read an article on meditating during times you wouldn't be doing much else like cooking, washing dishes, cleaning, or walking. I happened to be doing the latter. So I kind of lift my head up and try to take notice of everything around me. This helps broaden your view and takes you out of a focused train of thought. I get my breathing back down from the jog and stop feeling so cold.

 

As I get further down the road a real young guy (maybe only a few years younger than me, I'm 23) is in a tractor and offers me a ride. I tell him I've still got a ways to go, and he says he'll take me to a T intersection. Fine with me, it saves some time. I don't know if any of you have rode on a tractor, but these are one seat machines (generally). So I get on the step-up, grab on to the handle on the side and he takes off. Midway he stops and grabs a hay bale from this area that they keep them in and takes me to the intersection. I think him and head on my merry way. By the way, this is the second time this guy has given me a ride, last winter my car got stuck in the snow and he found me walking back to my house and gave me a ride all the way back. Just a funny note.

 

After a lot of walking I finally make it back home and find that everyone is gone. I look at my phone, and 3 minutes ago I had a text message. "Where are you? Where is the jeep?" This made me mad for a few reasons. First, if my step-mom had listened to me she'd know exactly where I was, they went the opposite direction and was looking on the wrong road for the Jeep. Second, half the cars in the ditch were large four-wheel trucks, this is a farm area and just about everybody has one, it's what my parents were in. It's always the idiots who are so over confident in themselves in their vehicles that ends up getting multiple people killed on days like this. So I sent a message back, "Seriously? I'm not about to act stupid enough to try and get that, it's on the highway." Or something to the tune of that, at this point I thought they were still looking on the gravel roads. When she sent another message, "Where's the car we can't find it." I send a message saying someone almost got killed and exactly what road it was on.

 

So I sit around for an hour watching TV waiting to see headlights come down the driveway. During this time I decided if they get stuck and try to message me about it, they can look for a ride, or walk like I did. When I see headlights, I leave to my bedroom and pick up the book "Boundaries" by Dr. Townsend, something I've read a couple times before. I shut the door because I don't want to deal with their crap. I know nothing they say will be of any use to me. Good thing, they never say a word, I don't see them at all and I eventually went to sleep.

 

>.> I'm a 23yo full-time student, and I often notice I'm more mature than my own parents. They know that if they called me about something like that I'd offer a ride, listen to the story, and trust their judgement. After all, it would be them in the situation, not me. But to them, I'm still a child who doesn't know what he's doing. My car is broke down and needs a simple fix to one of the gears on the belt. My dad insists on fixing it to "save money". It's been sitting there for two weeks now. I could have had it fixed in a day for maybe $200 dollars or less at the dealership. I've already wasted $50 on a part I didn't need at my dad's suggestion. I don't know much about cars so it's easy for someone to say what I "need" and I'll believe them. I remember even trying to tell my Dad about time-preference, that made him shake his head and look back at the TV, so I just looked back at my book. =/

 

Anyways, the point of me posting this here is because it won't likely get noticed by anyone I know which saves me from dealing with any repercussions. I probably won't get to tell it anywhere else and I figure doing so will help me not to worry about it. I came across a few very nice people last night which is great. Maybe private roads, with more concentrated efforts (rather than a few trucks for the whole area) would have gotten things cleaned up super fast. The roads still aren't any better. I'm not sure how my parents got the Jeep out. Probably by running up the hill from the bottom and putting anybody coming the other way in danger. It doesn't really matter, I think it was stupid of them to try.

 

So there it is. Feedback is welcome but not required. Thanks for reading.