Tuesday, July 19, 2005

Not my bloody fault

Something Fred said on his blog, and then something that Girl From Florida commented about garage doors on Fred's blog, made me think of a little bitty incident that happened at my house about four years ago.

It was a beautiful Saturday. Absolutely perfect. I hadn't retired yet, the husband was at a bookstore, and I was all set for a wonderful, lazy day off. Oh! The day was just so wonderful.

I decided to go somewhere...I've forgotten just where. The day was just too nice to waste. Gotta get out and do something. I backed out of the garage, used the automatic door opener and closed the garage door. Everyone calls the remote for a garage an opener, but it's a closer too..,wonder why that is? Oh, well.

We had very recently had a new front door to the house installed. Mahogany. Boy, it was, and is, a thing of beauty. I just love that door, and we get a lot of compliments on it. As I was just glancing at our new front house door to admire it, I saw some kind of paper flyer stuck in the door handle. Geez. I hate that.

So, I put the car in park, walk in front of it, and go to the front door to retrieve the paper stuck there. I look at the flyer; it's political. Urge to kill, and decision not to vote for the perpetrator. I look back at the idling car in the driveway. It is slowly, slowly, driving itself towards the garage door!

What the $#@%? It was in park! Yes, it was! I had walked in front of it! IT WAS IN PARK! Holy S**T! It's going uphill!

I run for the car. Of course I'm on the wrong side of it, have to run around to the driver's side to stop it. Visions of killing myself or breaking a leg quickly run through my head, but other visions of the damn car driving itself into the closed garage door and all the way through the back of the garage keep me running to stop the @!#$^&% thing.

I don't get to it in time to keep it from running into the garage door, but I do save the garage itself. Since the garage is all brick, and attached to the house, this is no small victory.

Well, I go into the house and call the place that installed the garage door, which isn't all that old. "So what happened to the door?" the guy asked.

"It got driven into by a car," I tell him.

"Your husband or you?" he asks.

"Me."

"Yeah, it's usually the wife," he said. Some men.

The door service can't come out until Monday. Sigh.

I'm going to have to confess to the husband. Another sigh.


Soooo, I drive to the bookstore, find the husband, and walk up to him. He looks surprised. He can tell from looking at me that something is wrong. I kiss him on the lips, just a peck, and say, "How much do you love me?"

"What did you hit, and how bad is it?"

"The car drove itself into the garage door."

"Well, I guess I love you enough to buy a new garage door," he said.

It really did drive itself into the door. I wasn't even in the damn car. It just took off on its own. Willy nilly. Like that. Not my fault. I don't know how it happened. There are some things even the great and wonderful Wizard of Oz doesn't know. How can I know?

I always wanted a garage door with "lites." Shoulda got one in the first place. That's what they call windows in a garage door. Lites. At least that's what this company called them. This new one has decorative windows all the way across. Looks very nice. Especially with that beautiful mahogany front door on the house. It all looked so good I had to buy new shutters to keep up.

14 comments:

Libby said...

now THAT is a good story, mostly because i can see myself doing that someday!
BoUnCeS!! LibbY!

OldHorsetailSnake said...

And maybe if you run into a tree you will have to have the house painted.

dddragon said...

LOL ... evil car!

When I worked at the picture framers', the glass for the frames was also called "lites".

Ahem ~ I seem to remember Dad leaving Nivek and Actonbell in the car (you, Aral and I were in the other car) to ask for directions, when his car began to roll backwards ... Dad did get to it pretty quickly.

Fred said...

LOL...what a great story. A possessed car that goes uphill? If I remember way back, there was an Audi model that supposedly would lurch forward - there was even a story about it on 60 minutes.

(Note to self. Turn off the car next time I retrieve something from my house.)

Tom & Icy said...

How in the world do you discipline a car? Great story.

Jamie Dawn said...

I think you unconsciously did that on purpose just to get the fancy garage door with Lites.
It drove itself? Ya, right!

Saur♥Kraut said...

All's well that ends well! Did you ever figure out how the car went uphill?

GodlessMom said...

Was the new garage door mahogany too?

mireille said...

the pez family always has the BEST adventures plus the BEST garage door. *envious* xoxoxo

Doug The Una said...

That is a great story.

I have a red 1951 pickup truck I don't drive anymore. When I did drive it, at one point the emergency brake broke and I would put it in gear, reach out with a dumbell and roll it under the tire. One day, when I was getting ready to go somewhere, I pulled the dumbell out, but the ignition was in "on" so when the truck lurched, the transmission engaged and the generator turned on the truck. The lights came on, the truck pulled out of the driveway and turned left down the street with me chasing behind. I jumped on the running board, climbed in the window and hit the brake with my hand. The truck, which I called Christine from then on, and I came to a stop half a mile from the other dumbell.

Lila said...

"Oops"

Kasarung Jr. said...

Dear 'Tan Lucy Pez' Ma'am,
I've taken the liberty of using your cute picture on my blog and even made some light refferal to yours. Let me know if I shouldn't. Thank you.

One of your 'patient'.
-Kasarung.

TLP said...

I don't know how the darn car drove itself up hill, but I swear on Harry Potter that I didn't do it on purpose. I was really shaken by it. I never leave a car idling now.

SAD TRUE STORY AHEAD: A year ago a grandmother who was driving the same model and year car as the one that went into our door, killed her grandson. She and the boy's mother met in a parking lot to "hand off" the boy. Grandmother had been babysitting, and they were meeting half-way.

The 1997 Chev Lumina that the grandmother drove was in park, and idling. The mother and grandmother were talking. The boy was outside with them but he was in front of the idling car. It started moving and it drove right over him. I think he was about 2. This happened right in this area.

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