A Withdrawal

It is very late, and I should be going to bed, but I just wanted to write about my night. I went to go have coffee and cake at my friend Jenn's house. After we chatted for a bit we popped in her Supernatural DVDs and started watching. Lately I don't know what it is, but it is like the 'play' button is somehow connected directly to my internal 'sleep' function. It wasn't long before I was out cold.

When I woke up I was glad to hear I had only been snoring a little bit, but I felt bad that once again I had fallen asleep on Jenn's floor. I decided I should get home to bed.

I got in my car and started driving. I got about 1 and a half blocks away and suddenly the car stopped moving. I was very confused because nothing seemed to be wrong, but the car just wouldn't move. Sure the road was extremely icy, but I couldn't move forwards or backwards at all. Out of habit I checked the emergency brake was disengaged and it was, but it seemed different. It felt like it might be frozen in the engaged position. I decided to just sit there for a while with the engine running. I was hoping that it would loosen up as the car heated up. I put on my hazard lights and just sat there in the middle of the road.

People kept driving by slowly, looking in my windows, but I just smiled and waved them on. After five minutes or so I tried jiggling the emergency brake, and this time I was convinced it was completely disengaged. I tried moving, but I still couldn't budge. I got out to check if I had driven into some kind of concave surface in the icy road that was too slippery to get out of. Instead I saw that I had a completely flat tire.

The temperature was about -30 outside, and I wasn't sure what I should do. I wanted to get my car off the road as soon as possible. I knew Jenn and Dave would help me out so I called them, thinking that we'd either change the flat, or push my car off the road.

Jenn came out to me and told me that Dave will change my tire in the morning, and that she can give me a ride home. By the time she got there though I had already decided that the road was too slippery to push my car into a suitable parking spot, and that it might be easier to just change the tire and drive it away under it's own power.

I had the spare and the jack out of the hatch already, so Jenn and I loosened the nuts on the flat. I was trying to remember how to position the jack when Jenn went to get her husband to help me. A minivan pulled up and the driver asked if I was ok. I asked him if he knew anything about changing a tire. He said that he did and so I asked if I had the jack in a good place or not. I expected him to come out and tell me if it was ok or not, but he totally took over the job. I felt bad that I was taking his help, but grateful that he was willing to give it. To be honest, changing a tire scares me at the best of times because I am always worried about the car falling off the jack. Changing a tire at -30 in the middle of the night on a surface of compacted snow seemed like a perfect recipe for the jack to slip out, so I was glad for his experience.

It wasn't long before two more good samaritans showed up. A man in a 4x4 truck came to help, and a moment later Dave also showed up. Dave wanted to finish the job for me, but the other two stuck around anyway. It was the kind of weather where even if only one person can do the work and things seem to be going fine, it is a probably good idea to have some backup around - just in case. Maybe four people changing one tire is overkill, but I am really glad they were all there.

It wasn't too long before my tire was changed. I said my thank you's and goodbye's and got inside my car. It was toasty warm after running for so long, but not warm enough to cancel out how cold I was. Even now, over three hours later, I am still cold. It is very late, and I should be going to bed, but I'm going to have a hot bath instead.