Appeared in (St. Paul Pioneer Press) Bulletin Board, November 14, 2002

One Thousand and One

I was going to school in St. Cloud. It was winter, and a new blanket of ice covered everything. Driving my car with its notably bald tires in a perfectly flat parking lot, I was trying to slowly turn a corner when the tires hit a spot where they spun but the car no longer was moving forward.

Alone, with no one around, probably running late, I figured I could get out of the car and give it the tiniest push off the spot it was attached to, jump back in the car and drive away. I did leave the car door open (to save time) and cautiously walked on the large pond of ice from the driver's side door to the front of the car which I'd left in reverse gear.

Do I have to tell the rest? I wouldn't have been doing this if there was something behind the car to hit; there wasn't. But the open door projected enough to slam into a snowbank, stopping the car long before I was back in the vehicle.

This was twenty-five years ago or so, so I forget exactly how I got back in the car, given that the door was embedded in the snowbank. Did I hop in the passenger side and slide across? Did I run completely around the car and get in the driver's side? Or did I jump over the snowbank that was one with the door and then over it again?

The door never worked the same. For the next many months I recall having to lift and close simultaneously which was especially difficult from the inside.

I haven't owned a car for over twenty years now and often mention my list of a thousand reasons not to. Add another to that list: one-car, no-occupant accidents.

Happy snowfall!