Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Lizzy Patton and the half froze grass (or Lizzy Patton and the prisoner of F-150skaban)

Saturday was going to be a rather lazy day. It was supposed to snow/ice so I wasnt planning on going anywhere. Liz was working in Wichita, so Joey (who just got a promotion) was going to come over and we were going to play some Wii and generally chill out. About an hour into our Wii extravaganza. My wife called and said she had been in an accident, that she was fine and then hung up on me... Ok. Well I'm glad she's ok but the use of hanging up as a use of tension was not necessary. I felt sufficiently tense. After calling back she said, "I'm getting into a Red F-150 here's the license plate number." She then told me the number using the phenetic alphabet for the letters. "TENGO TENGO BRAVO 956!" (yeah I married an army brat)I was confused. I replied,

"what?"


Liz:"TTB TTB!Quickly! TENGO TENGO BRAVO 956!!!"

Me: "uh, ok. got it. I think. . . Why am I writing this down again?"

Liz: "Just in case they take me. You can find me."

Me: "huh. good thinkin. Do they look like they are going to take you?"

"gotta go"

click.

(sigh)"My wife's been taken."

About 5 minutes later she called back and told me the car (which happened to be my car) wasn't starting and she would need me to come pick her up. I was pretty confused/freaked out so I was already half way out the door ready to track down a red f-150 who was selling my wife into the slave trade. She also told me she was about 30 miles south of Topeka (an important detail) and asked me for the AAA info. After driving too fast in the poor weather and turning around in one of those breaks in the median that your not supposed to turn around on, I arrived at the scene of the accident. Liz got out of the F-150, thanked her captors and stepped into our Taurus. (Very kind of the slave traders to let her go. Also the nicest looking slave trader ever. Looked like a grandma.) I made the trek through the thick mixture of grass mud and ice to my car which she had wrecked.

The 2002 Nissan Altima vaguely reminded me of the car Harry and Ron had lost to the forbiden forest in the 2nd Harry Potter book. Half frozen grass and mud was hanging all around the bottom of the vehicle. The front grill was stuffed with mudd and the entire left side of the car was spattered as well. The tail pipe was roughly gagged with the muddy mixture (which was the reason for vehicle not starting).

A police officer arrived on the scene to help. He asked whether I had been following her I said no, I had just arrived. He asked me how I got there so fast. I thought the better question was what took him so long. (possibly in cahoots with the red f-150 slave traders). After we cleared the tail pipe of the icy mixture the car started relatively easily. After rocking the car back and fourth we managed to get the car dislodged from its position of post-mobility. (during which the police officer kept reaching his arm in my car in order to turn the stearing wheel while I was driving. I appriciated his help, however, I felt that this was a good way for him to become one with the mud.)

After we got the car "unstuck" we stood basically on a hill with the trench in between me and getting the car back on the highway. I became very aware of how sharp the drop off is from the shoulder to the grass. The police officer gave me instructions:

"Now what your gonna wanna do is go forward on this hill and gain some speed so you dont get stuck in the trench then, when your past the trench, drive parallel to the shoulder for a ways and try to get up to 35 mph. Otherwise you won't be able to pop back onto the highway. But make sure you dont take to long because theres that bridge up there and I don't wanna half to fish you outa that creak."

Huh. Fair Point. Ok. I gave it a go. Made it past the trench ok but ran into a problem on the stretch for which to gain speed for the "pop" back onto the highway. The car couldn't get past about 25 miles per hour in the muddy-ice-grass. But the bridge was coming on fast so I went for it. I made it over! But not without severly scraping the undercarriage of my car. (sigh) oh well it had grass hanging down from it anyway. I followed Elizabeth back to Topeka. She drove about 50 miles an hour. Understandable. We made it as far as my parents house and we parked my car there. A day later we returned to the car. On the bright side it started. On the down side we can't shift it out of park. (sigh)

TOPEKA ATTORNEY