By Popular Demand: “Are You Kidding Me?!?”

I have to check on J’s house, I told The Boy at 9 a.m.

Mind you, I told him this while wearing three layers of clothes, socks, slippers, a quilt and a cat.

It’s icy, he said. Schools are closed. You’re working from home. Obviously, conditions are not ideal.

It’s important I check on J’s house, I told The Boy at 11:30 a.m. How do we know that every thing’s ok? What if their pipes burst?

Well, if you’re going to go, you should do it earlier rather than later, he said.

I really think I’d better check on J’s house, I told The Boy at 1:30 p.m.

If you are going to go, I wish you’d stop talking about it and go. In like, the next 30 minutes, he said.

So at 2 we headed downtown to check on J’s house. It was slippery; solid ice in places. We spent nearly 30 minutes just getting to the highway from our house – normally a 10 minute drive. And, of course, we were surrounded by idiots.

But conditions dramatically improved the further south we drove. We (me) grew confident with every passing mile. Until, of course, we pulled onto J’s street.

The ice skating rink street was pretty treacherous, but we were able to get the mail and head on to the house. Of course, parking was inconvenient – it always is. So it was no surprise that two vehicles were parked in front of J’s house. I started to pull in, eager to show off my parallel parking skills.

Ummm…are you sure this is a good idea?

Don’t worry, I’ve done this many times before.

Have you ever noticed that many problems begin with “Don’t worry”? I have.

I pulled in, put the car in reverse and proceeded to slide forward – towards the pick-up truck I wanted to park behind.

I stopped, put on the parking brake and looked at The Boy. What do I do?

I thought this was a dumb idea in the first place, he said. Why did you decide to parallel park when you could have pulled onto the dry pavement across the street?

Note to all husbands for future reference: This was clearly not the time to dissect what I should have done. We were in the middle of dealing with what I had done.

The Boy told me to pull forward towards the dry pavement. So I did….and slid towards the pick-up truck instead.

Brake. Parking brake. More desperate staring.

I know what to do, I said. Get out of the car and push us to the right while I steer.

The Boy just looked at me. Are you kidding me? You want to put me between the car and a pick-up truck, standing on an inch of ice? This is not a good plan.

Was I asleep when you wrote IDIOT on my forehead?

I think he overreacted a bit, don’t you?