I, at the time, was the proud owner of a big piece of rust with a Ford Bronco growing on it, and it was with that vehicle that I transported myself unreliably to and from various job sites, working as a contractor. The truck was no longer equipped with a heater because during the summer previous, the heater core busted and dumped boiling radiator fluid all over the front passenger floor board which was at the same point occupied by a college buddy's sandal clad feet. That little break down was easily fixed with the temporary (by temporary I mean permanent) bypassing of the heater core so that the boiling fluid stayed in the engine where it was supposed to be. Don't worry about my college buddy. After he quit screaming and dancing like a little girl over a little hot fluid, it was seen that his feet would only blister a little bit and he would be fine. For the purposes of this story, it is more worrisome that I was now without a heater.
The morning of "the blizzard" was not too unbearably cold, that is, unless, you were driving a pile of rust with no heater out to East of Nowhere, Colorado with the back window down. That morning I had just two pieces of lumber to pick up at Home Depot and it did not seem practical to hook up the trailer for two eight foot boards, so I hung the boards out the back and dealt with the cold. Fortunately, once I got to East, the job I was doing was finishing out a basement and thus, not out in the cold.
In Colorado, the building codes dictate that when you put up a wall in a basement, the wall has to "float" one and a half inches off of the floor. When I first learned this, I was under the impression that the building department must be big fans of the paranormal and was enormously relieved when I learned that "floating" a wall actually means "hanging" a wall off of the ceiling joists so that the bottom of the wall is one and a half inches from the floor. You then drive spikes through the bottom of the wall into the floor to keep the wall from swinging like a really stiff bead curtain. Why didn't they just say that it the first place? So, I built my first wall of the day then leaned it up against the concrete basement wall and turned around to look for something to jack my wall up into place. When I turned back around, the wall was no longer obediently leaning against the other wall, but had silently advanced to within a quarter inch of my nose and had gained a lot of speed. The wall flattened me out on the floor and did a fair nose job all in one motion.
The second wall went up quickly with not one painful glitch. Unless you count my wallet as a viable recipient for painful glitches. As I was pounding on the wall to make it nice and straight, and my nose was pounding on my face from the other wall, my aim with my hammer deviated slightly from the intended board and instead smashed into oblivion the drain pipe for the kitchen sink. I let loose with a long string of completely unintelligible language and called a plumber. I did not call the plumber because I don't know how to fix a pipe, but because all the stuff I needed in order to fix the pipe was back at home in my trailer that was too much of a bother to hook up and I did not have the time to drive all the way back home from East and all the way back again. I work on a schedule you know. The plumber was a nice enough guy though. He asked how I broke the pipe, and then he asked what had happened to my nose. He was, in fact, so concerned about me that he only charged me one hundred and seventy five dollars to fix six measly dang inches of pipe. I guess the prices are higher when the work is done East of Nowhere.
After getting a little more work done with no more incidents, I called it a day and headed off to class. Yup, off to class. I was still in college...sort of...and had a night class I was attending a little south east of town. On my way there, it started to snow. Once in class, the teacher decided that because the snow was supposed to get bad, he would get right to it and hand out the exam I had forgotten about. Oh, the joy. After the class had completed the paper version of the third degree the instructor dismissed us stating that the snow was really bad now and we should hurry home. Yeah, right. Hurrying home was certainly a nice thought, but the foot of snow that had fallen in the last hour made any sort of expediency a non-viability. As my rusty Ford trudged into the storm, I began to hear a noise.
The noise was quiet at first, and not really distinguishable from all of the other bangs, clanks, rattles, and squeaks that the thing made on a normal basis, but this noise got louder. It was a metallic clunking coming perhaps from a very flat tire, but the snow made it hard to be sure. I pulled off the side of the toboggan run that used to be a road and checked all four tires. Nothing.
"Well," I thought, "it could be that I'm about to throw my drive shaft...again. I'll just take it easy, and drive to the gas station up the road where I can get out of the snow, into the light and
check it out".
I never made it. I was doing about twenty-five mile an hour when out of nowhere a tire goes flying by me up the road. Just as I was thinking this to be a very odd occurrence the back passenger side of my Bronco dropped about sixteen inches and through the snow into the asphalt beneath and I went for a ride swerving back and forth from one side of the road to the other until the whole death trap came grinding to a stop smack dead in the middle of the road. I sat there stunned for a few moments and then blinked for the first time since seeing the tire go by. As the situation began to set in and I began to realize that I was still nearly an hour from home on a nice day, I started to get grumpy.
"Hey, man!" a female voice, not angelic repeated, "Hey, man," the voice was coming from a woman outside of her car in an intersection a block ahead of me, "your tire, man, it's all the way over here, man! MAN! It almost hit me, man!"
By this point, I had got out of my truck and was trudging through the snow to retrieve my wayward tire. She continued,
"Man, are you OK, man? Man, that tire really flew!"
I just grunted in response because what I wanted to say was, "Lady, if you say, 'man' one more time, I will get back in my three wheel drive truck and run over your face". She apparently took my curt response to mean just what I wanted; "Leave me alone, and go away", because she did. I should have asked her nicely if she would help me carry my wheel back to the pile of rust in the middle of the road because it would not roll in the snow and I had to hoist it to my shoulder and carry it a full block in nearly knee deep powder.
Once I reached my Bronco I dropped down to my knees to inspect the damage, catch my breath, and see what could be done about it so that I could set to work and get home. The problem was that at night, in the dark, in the middle of a blizzard, it's hard to see. It would have been handy to have the flashlight that I kept in my trailer.
Just as I was taking in a deep breath to utter a few things my mother would disapprove of, the world lit up. I looked over my shoulder and into a set of headlights which was, if the ride shortly before was not, a sure cure for constipation for the headlights were, although they were trying, not stopping. Reflexively, my legs shot out in an effort to propel me out of harms way, but because of the ice and snow, all they succeeded in doing was elevating me about a foot off of the ground in a full outstretched Superman pose where I hovered for a split second before falling straight back face down in the snow. The headlights, which belonged to an old Subaru station wagon, did finely stop when the bumper was directly over my heals and within kissing distance of my pile of rust.
"Hey! Are you alright, Captain?", the man said as my life was just finishing up flashing before my eyes.
I crawled up onto my hands and knees and opened my mouth to answer him, but he had already moved on in life and now began telling me how scared he had been while skidding down the road.
"Wow, Captain, I didn't think I was going to be able to stop" he related, "I thought I was going to hit you for sure, Captain, and I about wet all over my self!"
He paused mouth agape for a split second, "hey, Captain, what happened to your nose?"
He didn't ask, "hey, is your heart still beating after you just nearly got crushed to death by my car," he didn't ask, "can I help you with your tire," as though being dead center in the middle of the road with only three wheels in the middle of a snow storm was a normal sight for him not even deserving of the term 'spectacle'. No, he asked about my nose.
"Long, story" I said. "Do me a favor and keep your headlights where they are so that I can see what I can do about my wheel."
"Sure, Captain, no problem. I'm glad I'm here to help, Captain."
While this guy was obviously fond of pronouns just like the lady before him, at least he was calm and was of some use. Besides, at this point the irritation had been scared right out of me.
With the help of my near cause of death's headlights I discovered that there was no way that I was going to be able to get going again because the lug bolts that had previously been holding my tire on, had completely sheared off. I shoved my wheel under the crippled heap and stood up.
"No luck, Captain?"
"Nope. I'll just walk over to the gas station there, and call for a tow."
"No, Captain, let me give you a ride! I don't mind. You don't need to walk through the snow!"
"Thanks," I said, and got into the passenger seat.
As the guy started up the block and a half to the gas station he looked over at me and asked, "I hope you don't mind, Captain, but I'm high as a kite! I can still drive though."
It was at this point that I began to pray, "You know, Lord, if you're going to take me, just go ahead and do it. There really is no need for drawing it out like this. I mean, you're God and You know best, but this just seems cruel. Can you just take me now? Please?"
My stoner chauffeur pulled into the station without a glitch and slid pretty as you please into a parking spot right in front of the door. I used some of the upholstery in my hand to mop my brow, apologized for the damage and thanked him for the ride. Who would have thought that such a short ride could feel so long? After I got out, I stood there and waited for him to back out so that I could open the gas station door and went inside to use the phone. They did not have a phone inside that I could use so I made change and went back outside to use the pay phone. Every tow company in the state told me that they had at least a three hour wait and AAA was at this point useless. I had one of the companies put me on a list and I called my dad in order to share my misery. He said that he would come out and give me a ride home since the tow truck would probably not take the Bronco home in this weather, but would just drop it at the most convenient garage.
I was about to hang up the phone and go inside for a nice cup of coffee when my chauffeur the stoner came careening back into the parking lot coming to a stop several feet from anything that might ever resemble a parking spot. He burst out of his of car and began stomping his way toward me cussing like I had never heard anybody cuss before. Perhaps he was upset about the upholstery? I'll never know, because as I braced my feet and gripped the phone receiver as my only weapon ready to reach out and touch him, he stepped on the iced over handicap ramp, slipped and planted his face square on the sidewalk. I was sure he was unconscious or maybe dead, but after a few captivating moments he calmly got up, looked around and walked back to his car without saying a word. Don't ask, I have no idea.
I had been sitting at a table inside, nearly thawed out and nearly done with my second cup of coffee when I saw a deputy walk into the station and ask the lady behind the counter if she knew who the three wheeled truck in the middle of the road belonged to. The lady pointed to me, I waved at the deputy sheepishly and he walked over and sat down across from me. He didn't even wait for me to invite him to sit. He asked to hear my story and I gave him the abridged version which satisfied him. He told me that he threw a few flares down behind it so that no one would run into it. Like I cared at that point, but I thanked him and he got himself a cup of coffee and we chatted a while. He was very pleasant. His "brother in blue" who came in shortly after was not.
"Whose Bronco is that in the middle of traffic!?" he demanded as he burst in the door. I waived, but at this point I was just simply out of patience.
"Take it easy, Barney, and put your bullet back in your pocket. There is nothing I can do about it and a tow truck is on the way." I said this while smiling to that the witnesses to my beating might say that I was only joking with him and he took it the wrong way. It looked like that beating might very well occur but, the cop that was sitting with me started laughing and "Barney" noticed him for the first time, and as was explained to me after the second officer left, the one sitting with me was his field trainer. Score one for seniority. This is when my dad showed up.
My dad had brought with him three of his friends who were officers in the Air Force and were staying with him because they were in town only to participate in the wedding ceremonies of the daughter of a senator. I might have thought my luck was about to change but for two things. One; I called the tow company and was told that it would actually be another six hours. It was now midnight. Two; my dad for what ever reason had brought everyone out in the worst snow storm in decades to pick me up in the family minivan. Hindsight being twenty-twenty, that may not have been the best vehicular choice.
I grabbed the phone book, sick of the day, and called the first tow company my finger touched. I told the guy that I knew it was busy but that if he came and got my truck right now, I would give him three hundred bucks. I wanted to go home. He agreed and an hour later we were all on our way. It was nice having the three extra guys because as my dad drove along we would take shifts jogging along and deicing the windshield wipers. With just my dad and I, it would have gotten really cold.
The day was almost over for me, we were less than a mile from home with no more perceived obstacles the roads slick but not unnavigable. We were sitting at the last traffic light before the home stretch.
"Hang on!" my dad yelled suddenly, "Hang on, hang on, hang on..." BAM!!
A kid in a little red pick up that had no business out on the roads lost it on the ice and slammed into the back of the family minivan. Three Air Force officers sat on me while my dad exchanged information and then we went home to he and Mom's place.
We trudged into the house and my mom greeted me with a welcoming smile, "I'm glad you're all right and made it home in one pie....what happened to your nose?"
"Nothin' Mom. I'm going to bed." I slept well.
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