Sometimes in your life, you do something so stupid that even though you’re humiliated, you know it should be written down. This is one of those stories.
Well, in truth, my wife Carol threatened to write it if I didn’t. So here goes.
It was December 1972 and I had been dating Carol for six months. It was the end of the first semester and we were on holiday break. So, what should a couple of broke college kids do? Maybe I could scrape up enough change for a trip to McDonald’s.
Predictably, when I showed up at Carol’s house, she wasn’t ready. So while she finished primping, I thought it would be a good idea to wash my car, a plain, green,
‘69 Camaro.
I opened the double gate of the chain link fence and drove into the backyard. “This won’t take long,” I thought to myself, as I filled a bucket with water and soap.
Within a few minutes, my Camaro was a clean, twinkling emerald. Carol appeared on the back porch ready to go. This was going to be a good day.
Wrong. Once I cranked the Camaro and made a tight turn to head out front, I heard a thud. Suddenly, it stopped. I stepped on the gas and the engine raced, but the car didn’t move. It felt like something was holding it back.
Something was. When I looked underneath my Camaro, I discovered that I had run over a mimosa tree stump. And it was wedged against my rear axle.
“How can you a miss a tree stump?” you ask. I still don’t know. Even though a Camaro is low-slung and close to the ground, that’s no excuse. This was a special kind of stupidity. If there was an Olympic event for idiots that year, I would have won a gold medal.
I was screaming at the car, and kicking the tires when Carol re-emerged on the back porch.
“What have you done?” she asked with genuine concern.
“I’ve got my blankety-blank car stuck on a stump! Why do you have a tree stump in your back yard?”
She replied calmly, “The real question is, why is your car stuck on a tree stump in my back yard?”
How dare she use common sense against my anger
and sarcasm.
I yelled, “Come over here and help.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Get in the car. When I give you the word, step on the gas and I’ll push.”
She nodded, and slid in the front seat. Then I put my hands on the trunk, and shouted, “Gun it!”
She stepped on the gas pedal, and the engine roared. However, the tires just spun, sinking the rear end of the car even lower, and showering me with mud. In an instant, I looked like a Navy Seal trying to camouflage himself.
I yelled, “No, No!” But she thought I said, “Go, go!” and gunned the motor, spewing more crud all over me.
Quickly I stopped pushing and began yelling words that a Methodist would never say. Come to think of it, I don’t even think a rapper would have said them.
Carol came out of the car, looked at me, and said,
“What now?”
I answered weakly, “I don’t know,” and sat on the porch, shaking my muddy head. I was defeated.
Stump 1, Joe 0.
Fortunately, Carol’s mother had already called a towing service, and within an hour they arrived. In the meantime, she washed my clothes while I sat on the couch, wearing her bathrobe.
It took them about 30 seconds to hook my car up, remove it from the stump, and pull it into the front yard. And there it sat, a muddy mess.
We got in the car and headed directly to a drive-through car wash. We didn’t need to go to McDonald’s anyway.
