MOTHER NATURE TO THE RESCUE

The dull black and gray mechanical beast clawed its way over rocks and boulders with a myriad of clunks, groans and screeches. My bloodless knuckles clutched the steering wheel, cracked by age and the relentless Nevada sun, lest it be wrenched away.

I sensed more than saw long blonde hair flipping around, obscuring the face of my passenger. Hands shot out every direction as Shelley tried to grab hold of anything that might offer respite from the bumping and jarring.

Finally we were free. Mortified, I pulled into the nearest parking spot and jumped from the twenty-one-year-old Mustang muttering something about making sure I didn’t damage the undercarriage.

Shelley got out and, as if this were an every day occurrence, and leaned down to look under the car as well.

This was not the way I envisioned my first mother and daughter-in-law outing.
My son had called me and said, “Mom, Shelley really wants to go Christmas shopping with you, but she knows how bluntly honest you are and she’s afraid to ask.”

“Joe, you know I’ve loved Shelley from the first time we met and couldn’t have chosen a more perfect person for you myself. I’m ecstatic that Shelley wants to go somewhere with me.”

I picked Shelley up in my boyfriend’s pride and joy, a battle-scarred piece of American workmanship.

Dubiously, Shelley climbed in and her trembling fingers secured the seat belt as tight as possible.

“Obviously,” I thought, “Joe must have warned her about my driving too.”

I carefully eased into the flow of traffic with smooth gear synchronization rather than popping the clutch and slamming the gears like an epileptic.

Shelley and I were to meet my son for dinner at the KFC near the mall after a few successful hours of shopping on our own and finish up with him in tow.

I drove down the street intending to come up on the back side of the KFC. Shelley’s death grip on the armrest had eased and she no longer applied the invisible brake. We were bonding! Suddenly I spied a driveway on the other end of the KFC block.
“I’ll turn in here, it’ll be quicker,” I thought while maintaining the repartee with Shelley.

I yanked the steering wheel of the Mustang, forgetting that I can’t see past the mottled hood of the beast. The car screeched in protest, and I managed to miss the driveway by a good three feet and sent us flying over an off-road track of decorative landscaping.

Returning to an upright position from her inspection of the underside of the car, Shelley reported, “Doesn’t look like anything’s leaking under here.”
“Thank God, Rob would kill me if I wrecked his car.”

My four-wheeling incident was the subject of our dinner conversation as I endured endless teasing from my son, and even some good-natured ribbing from Shelley.
Not quite what I would have chosen for an ice-breaker, but what’s a little humiliation among family members.

We stepped out into the cool, crisp yuletide air to continue the Christmas shopping; unfortunately, when I started up the car, I was met with a chorus of unearthly sounds.

Mr. Murphy’s Law made it clear, with the cacophony under the hood, that my adventure had not gone unrewarded. The fan was hitting the fan housing.
I sent my son underneath the car to silence the protest and we continued to the mall.

Hours later, shopping finally done, I was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to return home. The silence of the night was broken by the earsplitting sound of the fan.

My son to the rescue again, he tried to cut the thick plastic housing with a small pocket knife—of course we didn’t have any tools. Nothing seemed to work, and then suddenly the noise disappeared.

“What did you do?”

“Rolled up some cardboard and shoved it between the housing and cross member to raise it up,” my son explained proudly. “Are you going to tell Rob you wrecked his car?”

“I don’t dare, he’d kill me; or worse, never let me drive his car again, and you know that would kill me.”

“Mom, you can’t lie about anything, not even to save yourself. I bet you tell him as soon as you get home, you won’t be able to stop yourself.”

“No, I have to keep this to myself. So where to now?”

“No offense, but Shelley is going to ride with me now. She wants to get home in one piece; but she says thanks for a very interesting day.”

Slightly red-faced, I headed home.

It was all I could do to keep from telling Rob what had happened, because my conscience kept trying to goad me into honesty.

Two months later Reno had a “once in a decade” blizzard. It dumped a couple feet of snow on the valley floor and up to four in the higher elevations.

My apartment sat on a hill on the north end of town. Reaching it was like trying to go the wrong direction on a bobsled track.

I left the Mustang parked in a huge snow bank that was my assigned parking spot and took our truck to work. When I got home Rob was standing by the Mustang, red faced, hands clenching at his waist.

“I backed the Mustang out this morning and it was making this loud clacking noise.”

My heart went into my throat and I thought I was going to pass out. I searched for words but found none.

“That big pile of snow pushed the fan housing up into the fan. I should have shoveled the snow away from the front of the car. It’s not really that big a deal I just cut the housing off. It’s not like the fan really needs the plastic around it. The car will be fine without it.”

I looked skyward and said a silent thank you to Mother Nature