JimFormation

“Dad, can I borrow your Jeep? My car is stuck in the mud.” So says the 17-year-old girl without any follow-up or explanation.

Let me back up a bit.

After three weeks of sub-zero temperatures, we had a bit of a thaw this weekend. All the snow melted as did the first three or four inches of earth. What was left was a loose, wet pack of mud on top of ice. Don’t park your car on top of it because it will get stuck and you might not be able to get it out until May.

The night before one of my wife’s sisters parked on the grass in my side yard. She got stuck there and got out in an ugly, spinning, swerving, and gunning maneuver that was last taken in 1942 by a Japanese Zero trying to get out of a Mustang P-51′s gun sights.

I don’t blame my sister-in-law for trying to park there. She was only following my rule:

“Don’t park in the turn-around. I will hit your car. I’ve done it before and I will do it again. I’ve even blown through my car’s back-up sensor to do it.”

I have a long driveway that backs into a busy road. In order not to have to back into 40 mph traffic, I had a turn-around put in. The turn-around allows you to get your car turned around so that you can get out on the street going forward.

My pin-brain assumes no one would ever park in the turn-around. Most people don’t see it the way I do. They see the turn-around as two more parking spots.

I’ve started telling people who park there, “If you insist on parking there, I will hit your car. Ask Tricia, I took hers out and it wasn’t even a week old. I’ll do the same to yours. Trust me.”

So Terri was just doing what I advise all my guests to do: If you don’t want to park behind me or my wife’s car, park in the side yard. Terri tried to park there, but didn’t realize the weekend’s thaw turned the grass into swamp.

It took me and my four-year-old a half-hour to put the yard back together again.

Which brings me to my daughter. Stuck in the front yard. Ready to abandon her vehicle with the hopes of commandeering mine.

“No. You cannot borrow my Jeep. Sometimes it doesn’t start. I don’t want you stranded anywhere.”

She was in a hurry. She was miffed. She wanted to leave. Now.

The Wife-beast chimes in, “Aren’t you going to help her?”

“Of course, I am. I’m thinking.”

“Well, stop thinking, and get some wood to put under the tires and get her car unstuck.”

“I don’t think I’m going to need wood.”

The front tires of my daughter’s car are mired in up to the hubcaps. I could tell that she used her aunt’s approach to extricating the vehicle: Put the car in reverse, step on the accelerator, and turn the wheel wildly. Poor form.

They don’t teach you how to get unstuck in driving school. They should.

I learned how to get unstuck by getting stuck a lot. Kids these days aren’t adventurous enough to purposefully slam their cars into drifts of snow and have to get it out before the cops show up (pussies), but that is another story.

I don’t know your method, but here’s mine for getting unstuck. It’s lasted the test of time.

1. Don’t spin your tires. It’ll only dig you deeper in;
2. Don’t turn your tires. It’ll only slop up any traction you might have;
3. Gently “rock” the car – a little forward, a little back, a little forward, a little back. Be patient. Eventually you’ll make a bit of a runway where you can build some momentum;
4. Go as far forward as you can without spinning the tires. Bring the car backwards; build as much momentum as you can. At the right moment (you’ll feel it), hit the gas just hard enough to build speed. The car will pop itself out.
5. If it doesn’t pop out, repeat.

I had my daughter’s car out of the muck in less than a minute. “How did you do that?” She asked me in the same way you ask a magician how he found your card.

After I explained the above five step process to her she said, “Oh. Like physics.”

Something like that.