Yesterday, as I was getting ready to leave for work, I discovered a rather large monstrosity in the driveway. Seems that my neighbors were having work done on their gigantic white pine. Though I had hoped they were having it removed, they were just getting it trimmed.
It’s not that I don’t love trees, it’s just that the neighbors on either side of my house each have these 80 feet tall, 80 billion year old white pines. All year long they spray sap, drop preemie pine cones that look like maggots, spray sap, fill the gutters with pine needles, spray sap that the dogs get between their toes and there is NO getting it out so they go nuts and chew their feet, dump pine cones everywhere. Oh! and they spray sap all over the place.
There was this large truck with a bucket on a lift and those big extendo stabilizer feet and it was all set up and there was a dude way up high in the tree. I didn’t want to be a dick and make them disassemble everything just so I could get my car out so I grabbed David’s keys and took his car to work.
I think I can officially say I know how to drive a manual transmission.
The thing about David’s car is that when he bought it, the previous owner had had to replace the driver’s side door, but he never got the lock changed to match the key. This really isn’t an issue, in fact it makes things very chivalrous because David always unlocks and opens the passenger door for me (then I get in and open his door for him. Easy). When I got to work yesterday I parked on the street as the ramp was full.
After an exciting and emotionally fulfilling day at work, I left and went to the car. I parked on the street next to a snow bank. To be more accurate, it was a dense, flat faced snow cliff. Anyone who has grown up with real snow knows that come february, all the snow is concrete. It’s been there forever, it’s warmed and refrozen and dried out enough to become especially solid and unyielding. Those of you who envy us and our snow are actually just envying that early fluffy Norman Rockwell snow, not reality. February snow is the leading cause of hiding under the bed and weeping.
And so, the car is there next to the snow and I have very few inches between the two. I try to squeeze into the passenger side so I can unlock the driver door and it’s a no go. I try different tactics, butt first, backwards, eyes closed, swearing, laughing, farting. I’m not getting in. I have to just accept that I’m too damned fat for this job. There are any number of skinny people on campus with whom I am friends. I could call one of them and have them come help me. “Hello, you are skinny and I am the human dugong, can you help me get in the car? yes, please bring some lard and a hydraulic jack….and some cupcakes too!”
I don’t have my cell phone with me! Dammit! I forgot it at home again and I don’t actually know anybodies phone number. I could go back to my office and call David and ask him to drive over in my car and work this out, he’s remarkably thin and agile, but I know he’s tired from work and I don’t want to be a stringwiener. I had to call him once and ask him to bring gasoline to me because I was playing fast and loose with my gas gauge. Nobody likes an irresponsible girlfriend! Especially one that can’t even get into her car because she has a deep and abiding love for the four basic dairy groups, The Frozen, The Aged, The Spreadable and the Chocotastic.
Okay, fine, me and my gargantuan ass accept that this problem is ours and ours alone! Using sheer force of will and pretty good upper thigh strength I literally forced myself into the car. It was like shitting backwards in public. once I was in I realized I wasn’t going to be able to just unlock the driver door, get out and go around I decided to just clamber over the seats and drive away.
I had considered going through the hatchback, but I figured that was a real emergency sort of move. A billion years ago the door latch mechanisms on my tiny Geo Storm froze solid. No amount of swearing or force could help you. We were forced to climb in and out through the hatch back. That car was much smaller than David’s and I was way way fatter then, but I still wasn’t going to do it unless a mecha-godzilla was coming directly at me and it was my only escape route…and even then I’d have to think about it.