I've been asked often enough how I come up with the stories that I tell you guys in this little space, and I wish I had a more interesting answer than the true one - stuff just happens to me. It may also be that I am a tad dramatic and have a slight knack for exaggeration and like to tell stories, but the bottom line is, I am just one of those people. You know the kind - everyone has one friend or family member in their life - the one that you just look at and say - this kind of stuff only happens to you.
Last weekend was a lovely time for me and Zoe, spent hanging out with friends in different venues. Only one of them took a rather interesting turn.
I pulled up in the front yard of some friends' house Saturday evening for a "hey let's make s'mores and let our kids run around the yard together" party, hopped out of the Jeep, and went into that constant motion kind of thing wherein I slam my hip against the door to get it to shut while grabbing a diaper bag and going around to the other side to get Zoe our of her carseat (every mom knows this movement - it's kind of like one of those fancy yoga sequences that people memorize, only with old floorboard french fries and random little shoes). Only my momentum was thrown off when instead of the door closing, it jammed open. Like wide open. As in, I sort of bounced off of it and almost landed on my rear end in the yard, because it wouldn't close.
Well, that was interesting. Also, it was starting to rain.
A few more friends pulled up behind me, and of course, asked me why I was flinging myself against my driver's side door. When I told them it wouldn't shut, they did not believe me, so we all flung ourselves against it for a few more minutes before agreeing that it was, in fact, legitimately stuck.
So then I had to grab my kid, go inside my friend's house, and very politely ask her husband if he would mind going outside to see if he could ram my Jeep door shut. He made a valiant effort, probably dislocated his shoulder, and even used a screwdriver at some point, but to no avail. Google even failed us, because apparently this kind of thing just doesn't happen very often. I pictured myself driving home in the rain with an open driver's side door, and figured it would be better to ask someone for a ride.
Eventually we did what all modern young professionals do - turned to Facebook. It was slightly embarrassing to have my poor broken Jeep put on blast like that, and people had plenty of funny har har stuff to say about how to get it shut, but eventually some real assistance arrived, in the form of another friend's husband who happens to know how to fix everything in the world, apparently.
By now it was dark and cold, and I alternated between hanging out at the backyard s'more making party (which involved seven little girls and lots of marshmallows on sticks, in which no one got impaled or even scratched so that's pretty amazing and a testament to good parenting and God's grace) and standing in the front yard all awkward and not at all useful in my Minnie Mouse sweatshirt while these awesome guys took apart my Jeep. At one point I got to hold my window crank (yes my Jeep is a 1995 and has an actual window crank) in my hand, but then I got distracted and ran inside the house because I heard there was coffee and potato soup, and they had to come hunt me down to get it back. Basically I was no help at all.
Eventually the door closed, and by the end of the weekend all was put to rights. And actually several more weird things happened to prove that I am, in fact, the Queen of Awkward Situations and Uncomfortable Conversations, but nobody has time for all those stories.
There are two takeaways from this particular story, however: I have wonderful amazing friends, and Zoe discovered marshmallows, which changed her life in a real and lasting way.
sspears@blythevillecourier.com