New Car
"I'll drive the truck over there and you can drive the Honda back," the husband said. "I gotta be to work by two-thirty."
"W-why are you going to drive the truck?' the wife said. “Joe said you could back it right out on that little road to the shedeau, all the way to Park Rapids, Minnesoter. Sounds like it's blocked in front by snow, but clear in back."
"Well, I thought just in case I'd need it. I'd just hook on to it and pull it out of there because we don't have a lot of time before I have to leave for work. It's already about twelve fifteen or so...,” the husband explained.
His wife made one of her, "Get serious" faces, that all married men know about if they've been married for very long. So the husband acquiesced, “Okay, let's take the Honda then. It's still warm from the trip I took to Wannaska."
So the man and the woman got in their little blue-green colored 1989 Honda Accord, the exact same interior of the exact same model, year and color of the car that they had recently purchased from their friend Joe and was parked in his yard, and drove over to his house along the Roseau River to get it.
There, with a sheet of plywood leaning against its front hood--and a good-sized snowbank packed around the rear-end and driver's side of the exact same model, color and year of the car they had driven over there because they wouldn't need their four wheel drive truck for any reason, nor the aluminum grain shovel the man carried in the back--in the remote case the man would ever have to shovel snow again so soon after his angiogram that determined his heart didn't have blockage, the man exclaimed, "Whoa!" wishing he ignored his wife's look and had driven his four-wheel drive truck.
“What the . . .?” the woman exclaimed, seeing she had been duped by the fraudulent email message, an excerpt of which is below:
“I came back with the charger and discovered the engine compartment totally packed with snow from the Christmas storm. I put the charger on and dug out as much snow as I could. This morning I plugged in the block heater for good measure. That melted some more snow. After church she fired right up. I let her run awhile to keep the juices flowing. No hurry to move it. It's not in the way at all. Though if you do need it for any reason it would be easy to back out onto my road all the way to Park Rapids, Minnesoter.”
The man remembered an old steel grain shovel his friend Joe had, leaning against some shelving, when he had returned the snowshoes that he and his wife had borrowed. So he trudged to the house to get it while his wife rummaged around in Joe's garage and found a long handled garden spade.
The man and his wife set to digging the Honda out of the snowbank around the car, when the wife, in her eternal wisdom, suggested that he try to start the car. The husband reminded her that Joe had emailed he had.
"I'm not about to be duped again," the woman said.
But the man had thought of such things and had packed his battery booster in the trunk of the Honda, just in case he needed it--but not so, his lightweight aluminum shovel, nor had he driven his four-wheel drive truck with its tow strap inside, despite his wife's insistence that Joe had emailed that it would be easy to back it out all the way to Park Rapids, Minnesoter, and thus be unnecessary.
Confident that he was prepared for this contingency, the man opened the passenger door, reached in and turned the car key in the ignition. "Zip-a-dee doo dah," the old Honda started as stated.
"Maybe you misunderstood his email?" the man asked his wife as they shoveled.
"Nope,” she said, grunting a huge chunk of snowbank as big as a road map to one side of her with her long handled garden spade.
“He wrote that you could back this car clear to Park Rapids, Minnesoter, it was so clean behind it. Why don't you try backing out now?
So the man, forever wishing he had ignored both his friend Joe and his wife, and had driven his four wheel drive truck to make this so easy, slid into the driver's seat from the passenger seat, put the car into reverse--and the wheels just spun uselessly.
Crawling out he straightened himself up to his full five foot nine inches of average height and went back to shoveling snow with Joe's heavy steel grain shovel as his even shorter wife shoveled away with her long handled garden spade; the snow chunks fairly whipping past her head as though she was a human snowblower.
Satisfied with their progress and glancing at his not-always-reliable wristwatch, then comparing it to the clock in the car that was still set to daylight savings time, he saw the time was one fifteen in the afternoon, and so suggested he push mightily from against the snowbank that Joe had emailed her was indeed in front of the car--and that she back the car out away from it, all the way to Park Rapids, Minnesoter. Reluctantly, she agreed.
The man waited patiently as his wife of one year and twenty-two days adjusted the car seat, positioned the rearview and side mirrors, buckled her seat belt and fully acquainted herself with the exact same interior of the exact same model, year and color of the car they had driven over there, instead of the four wheel drive truck the man wanted to drive that would've made all this shoveling, pushing and grunting unnecessary, noting the only thing that inside it was different was a push-button switch for fog lights in the console to the left of the steering wheel that the exact same model, year and color of the car they had driven over there did not have--Plus, she had observed, there was no H-for-Honda hood emblem on it, thus making it not so exact.
"What else is different?" the man heard the woman think aloud looking about the car.
The man readjusted his position outside the car. He knew better than hurry her reconnaissance, knowing her cooperation was invaluable at this juncture and it would be merely a matter of a few seconds before she was ready to put the car into reverse, but when she said,
"The radio in here is supposed to have a remote. You'll have to ask Joe where it is..."
The man threw up his gloved hands and said,
"Fee-fon woman! Just drive the car!"
She 'sensed' his displeasure and chided him for his irritability,
"I just said this radio has a remote and Joe might know where it is, why do you get so upset?..."
Then the woman pulled the gear shift into reverse and gave it some gas. Straining against snowbank, the man shoved the front of the H emblem-less hood with all his might - - - until the car finally caught traction and fell away from him, zooming backwards into the snowbank on the other side with a whomp! Efforts to merely drive forward were punctuated with a lot of useless tire spinning and swearing.
It was one thirty, two thirty according to the clock radio. The man had to call-in late for work. The car sat, stuck again, cockeyed to the road where the woman had abandoned it saying she was going to walk to the shedeau that was under construction and see what more had been done.
The man readjusted the seat to fit him and turned its CD player off as it was blasting, "Six Days on the Road" by Dave Dudley.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHbGhEfnh2E
Shoveling again, just a little, the man drove the car out of the snowbank without too much trouble and around to the front of the garage where he emptied it of its character; Joe's collection of rocks and maps, a tiny Irish Dooley van model, its All-Time Greatest Hits Trucker CD, and the remote to the radio.
"It's a Cadillac, Joe. Thanks."
"I'll drive the truck over there and you can drive the Honda back," the husband said. "I gotta be to work by two-thirty."
"W-why are you going to drive the truck?' the wife said. “Joe said you could back it right out on that little road to the shedeau, all the way to Park Rapids, Minnesoter. Sounds like it's blocked in front by snow, but clear in back."
"Well, I thought just in case I'd need it. I'd just hook on to it and pull it out of there because we don't have a lot of time before I have to leave for work. It's already about twelve fifteen or so...,” the husband explained.
His wife made one of her, "Get serious" faces, that all married men know about if they've been married for very long. So the husband acquiesced, “Okay, let's take the Honda then. It's still warm from the trip I took to Wannaska."
So the man and the woman got in their little blue-green colored 1989 Honda Accord, the exact same interior of the exact same model, year and color of the car that they had recently purchased from their friend Joe and was parked in his yard, and drove over to his house along the Roseau River to get it.
There, with a sheet of plywood leaning against its front hood--and a good-sized snowbank packed around the rear-end and driver's side of the exact same model, color and year of the car they had driven over there because they wouldn't need their four wheel drive truck for any reason, nor the aluminum grain shovel the man carried in the back--in the remote case the man would ever have to shovel snow again so soon after his angiogram that determined his heart didn't have blockage, the man exclaimed, "Whoa!" wishing he ignored his wife's look and had driven his four-wheel drive truck.
 |
| "It would be easy to back out all the way to Park Rapids.” |
“What the . . .?” the woman exclaimed, seeing she had been duped by the fraudulent email message, an excerpt of which is below:
“I came back with the charger and discovered the engine compartment totally packed with snow from the Christmas storm. I put the charger on and dug out as much snow as I could. This morning I plugged in the block heater for good measure. That melted some more snow. After church she fired right up. I let her run awhile to keep the juices flowing. No hurry to move it. It's not in the way at all. Though if you do need it for any reason it would be easy to back out onto my road all the way to Park Rapids, Minnesoter.”
The man remembered an old steel grain shovel his friend Joe had, leaning against some shelving, when he had returned the snowshoes that he and his wife had borrowed. So he trudged to the house to get it while his wife rummaged around in Joe's garage and found a long handled garden spade.
The man and his wife set to digging the Honda out of the snowbank around the car, when the wife, in her eternal wisdom, suggested that he try to start the car. The husband reminded her that Joe had emailed he had.
"I'm not about to be duped again," the woman said.
But the man had thought of such things and had packed his battery booster in the trunk of the Honda, just in case he needed it--but not so, his lightweight aluminum shovel, nor had he driven his four-wheel drive truck with its tow strap inside, despite his wife's insistence that Joe had emailed that it would be easy to back it out all the way to Park Rapids, Minnesoter, and thus be unnecessary.
Confident that he was prepared for this contingency, the man opened the passenger door, reached in and turned the car key in the ignition. "Zip-a-dee doo dah," the old Honda started as stated.
"Maybe you misunderstood his email?" the man asked his wife as they shoveled.
"Nope,” she said, grunting a huge chunk of snowbank as big as a road map to one side of her with her long handled garden spade.
“He wrote that you could back this car clear to Park Rapids, Minnesoter, it was so clean behind it. Why don't you try backing out now?
So the man, forever wishing he had ignored both his friend Joe and his wife, and had driven his four wheel drive truck to make this so easy, slid into the driver's seat from the passenger seat, put the car into reverse--and the wheels just spun uselessly.
Crawling out he straightened himself up to his full five foot nine inches of average height and went back to shoveling snow with Joe's heavy steel grain shovel as his even shorter wife shoveled away with her long handled garden spade; the snow chunks fairly whipping past her head as though she was a human snowblower.
Satisfied with their progress and glancing at his not-always-reliable wristwatch, then comparing it to the clock in the car that was still set to daylight savings time, he saw the time was one fifteen in the afternoon, and so suggested he push mightily from against the snowbank that Joe had emailed her was indeed in front of the car--and that she back the car out away from it, all the way to Park Rapids, Minnesoter. Reluctantly, she agreed.
The man waited patiently as his wife of one year and twenty-two days adjusted the car seat, positioned the rearview and side mirrors, buckled her seat belt and fully acquainted herself with the exact same interior of the exact same model, year and color of the car they had driven over there, instead of the four wheel drive truck the man wanted to drive that would've made all this shoveling, pushing and grunting unnecessary, noting the only thing that inside it was different was a push-button switch for fog lights in the console to the left of the steering wheel that the exact same model, year and color of the car they had driven over there did not have--Plus, she had observed, there was no H-for-Honda hood emblem on it, thus making it not so exact.
"What else is different?" the man heard the woman think aloud looking about the car.
The man readjusted his position outside the car. He knew better than hurry her reconnaissance, knowing her cooperation was invaluable at this juncture and it would be merely a matter of a few seconds before she was ready to put the car into reverse, but when she said,
"The radio in here is supposed to have a remote. You'll have to ask Joe where it is..."
The man threw up his gloved hands and said,
"Fee-fon woman! Just drive the car!"
She 'sensed' his displeasure and chided him for his irritability,
"I just said this radio has a remote and Joe might know where it is, why do you get so upset?..."
Then the woman pulled the gear shift into reverse and gave it some gas. Straining against snowbank, the man shoved the front of the H emblem-less hood with all his might - - - until the car finally caught traction and fell away from him, zooming backwards into the snowbank on the other side with a whomp! Efforts to merely drive forward were punctuated with a lot of useless tire spinning and swearing.
It was one thirty, two thirty according to the clock radio. The man had to call-in late for work. The car sat, stuck again, cockeyed to the road where the woman had abandoned it saying she was going to walk to the shedeau that was under construction and see what more had been done.
The man readjusted the seat to fit him and turned its CD player off as it was blasting, "Six Days on the Road" by Dave Dudley.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHbGhEfnh2E
Shoveling again, just a little, the man drove the car out of the snowbank without too much trouble and around to the front of the garage where he emptied it of its character; Joe's collection of rocks and maps, a tiny Irish Dooley van model, its All-Time Greatest Hits Trucker CD, and the remote to the radio.
"It's a Cadillac, Joe. Thanks."
A little context here ladies and gentlemen. WW is like the poet Homer in that he starts his stories in the middle of things. Since this story makes me look like a bit of a shlub, I'm going to weigh in.
ReplyDeleteThrough a series of mishaps, I once owned both these identical green 1989 Honda Accords. The first one I'll call Dad's Accord and the second, Becky's. My parents and my sister-in-law Becky both bought the same model Accord in 1989.
In 2000 the transmission on Dad's Accord went out. He was going to get rid of it but I said I'd buy it and pay for the transmission repair. I had already owned several Honda Civics and the Accord would be luxury for me. I convinced WW to fly to Boston with me to help drive it home. My two younger sons were working in Boston that summer and I would be able to haul them home and save on their airfare.
Son #2 went to college the next year and I loaned him the Accord to get the job he was never able to locate. This was before GPS. The Great Roseau Flood hit in 2002 hit and the computer under the front seat of Becky's Accord was ruined by rising waters. She decided to get rid of the car so I bought it and had a new computer installed. Son #2 took a year off from college to work and got himself another car. Now I had two identical '89 Accords. I asked WW if he'd like to buy Becky's Accord. He said yes and put it in his stable. WW likes to keep three or four older vehicles in running condition. If one goes down he quickly throws insurance on another and he's back in business.
Dad's Accord ran well but had a bad air leak in the firewall. I got very cold driving it to work in the winter. I got myself another car and let Dad's Accord sit by the garage. WW has a large extended family whose members are always on the lookout for low cost vehicles to get to work. WW asked to buy Dad's Accord so he would pass on to a deserving family member. I told him of the freezing cold firewall and he said for a free vehicle, the recipient could throw an old feed sack across his legs in the winter.
So there you have it. I told WW that if he proceeds me to the Big Accord in the sky, this email will be his eulogy. It paints a fine picture of what it was like to be him, back in the day.