My Side Of The Story

Yesterday morning in church Pastor Jack said something from the pulpit that involved me, and I didn't have a chance to explain my side of the story to the congregation. So this is my side of the story.

Saturday was the first warm day since the January thaw. RRRRRoll Up The RRRRRRim is in full swing. I'm putting away my sweaters. The days are getting longer. We just set our clocks ahead. Spring is on it's way!

Now, I was out for most of the day on Saturday. When I got back on Saturday night the McQueen's cars were parked side by side in the drive way. I had to block one of them in. Since the Toyota doesn't have the insurance sticker on it yet, it wasn't going anywhere so I decided to block it in.

The last time it snowed out and the plow went by and created a snow-bank. We never cleared it away. We just tried patting it down with the cars as we drove over it. But due to the warm weather (+2 degrees) and the humidity on Saturday the bank at the end of the driveway ended up freezing over. It's also higher at the edges of the driveway than the center.

I backed into the driveway but when my rear wheels got over the bank the car stopped and wouldn't go back anymore. The wheels just spun on the ice. So I pulled out and tried again. Same results. I tried again. Same results. I tried a fourth time, giving more juice. The problem is that if I gave too much juice I'd go crashing into the Toyota, which we just got back from the shop on Thursday night. But this attempt worked. I gave it enough juice to get all four wheels over the hump, but not enough to hit the Toyota. As soon as the car stopped, the front slid to the right putting my car at an angle.

I knew this might cause problems for the Intrepid. But I checked, and it looked like the Intrepid had more than enough room to get around me. And it would have, except for what happened on Sunday morning.

Apparently, the warm weather on Sunday morning caused the bank to melt enough to make it wet and slushy, but not enough for it to shrink and/or go away. So, when the McQueens went to leave that morning, in order to get around my car they had to drive through the bank. The wheel sunk in and got stuck. Given the amount of (wet) ice in the driveway, they wanted to be careful, otherwise they would hit my car. Then some people came walking by, one of whom was built like a truck, and helped them push the car out of the driveway.

One of the disadvantages of living with a Pastor of a church is that if you make a mistake, you may hear about it (along with everyone else) from the pulpit. However the advantage is that when he uses one of us in a sermon (by name) he owes us 25 cents. The disadvantage, as I found out yesterday, is it's a fictitious 25 cents.

So, to sum up, I blocked them into the driveway in an effort to not smoke their car. But this made it hard for them to not smoke my car. Normally my parking job wouldn't be an issue because 1) I am normally a very good backer-upper, staying well out of their way; 2) They normally could have driven over the bank except for the exact weather conditions that existed over the past 24 hours; and 3) being on two worship teams at church I end up having to leave earlier than them. In fact there's only one Sunday per month when I don't have to go in early, and, consequently, can sleep in. This happened to be that Sunday.

I'm sorry, the McQueens.

UPDATE: Apparently, Pastor Jack didn't actually say my name from the pulpit. It just felt like he did because of his tone, and he was looking right at me. There goes my fictitious 25 cents.