Still clenched
It's easy to become numb to the prognostications of TV meteorologists. Drama sells, and if your life is tied to the Doppler radar, I can see how you'd get excited when you get to point to all the blobs of color and toss out your science-y weather jargon.
This weekend in Indianapolis, we were forecast to get a lot of snow in the midst of dangerously cold temps. A good formula to stay inside by the fire, right?
But Angela was hosting Christmas Bunco at her home in Brownsburg, and Jeff was hosting a bourbon gathering at our house. Much as I adore the Captain's drinking buddies, I can't drink bourbon or whiskey. So I was extra motivated to go to Bunco - despite the weather and potentially poor road conditions.
My friend Jeph was coming to my house and we were going to pick up Annmarie on our way to Brownsburg, which is (normally) about 20-30 minutes away from Broad Ripple.
We set our plan and I went about the business of recovering from the delicious White Christmas Lemon Drop cocktails and Peppermint Espresso Chocolate Pudding Shots that were just one feature of a great night. The Captain agreed to be our bartender, and I think we all were at least a bit hungover on Saturday.
A few hours before departure, he texted our group to say he was nervous about the snow and didn't trust himself to get out in it.
I offered to pick him up because Bunco is better with Jeph. And, I was driving Jeff's Subaru, so the weather was going to be no match for me. Ultimately, I agreed to drive everyone door-to-door. Everyone being Jeph, Annmarie, Lynda and Amy. I'd planned to start out at 4 p.m. to get us to Brownsburg by 5.
Pre-departure, the texts flew.
"Should we leave earlier than planned?"
"I have snacks. I will also have Xanax and a THC pen in case someone needs to calm their nerves as well."
"Hopefully the weather will be better by the time it's time to go."
"Be extra careful on the hills coming to my house. Also don't drive into the lake."
"Good Lord it's already down to 17 degrees."
I start out at 3 p.m. When I picked up Jeph and Annmarie, the first question was: "Why are we doing this? Maybe we should just stay here."
We get to Amy's where she and Lyn were waiting like kids at a bus stop. I ask, "Why are we doing this? Maybe we should just stay here."
"I said the same thing to Amy, and she yelled at me," Lynda says.
Amy, overhearing, repeats what she'd said to Lyn: "It'll be an adventure!"
So, for the record, four of the five of us were pretty sure this was a bad idea. No, we didn't want to disappoint Angela. Yes, we wanted to be together. So off we went. After a quick consult, we opted to stay on 86th Street rather than the interstate. I thought there would be less traffic, thus less risk.
Eighty-sixth Street is one of the city's busiest retail corridors with three malls and thousands of strip malls. It has six or maybe more traffic lanes in some sections. But as it shoots toward Hendricks County and Brownsburg, it narrows, eventually becoming a two-lane country road lined with corn fields. lovely homes and trees.
And ditches. Some deep, with icy water swirling around. Some gentle introductions to non-paved topography. Some lined with brush and trees. A cornucopia of important drainage but potential treachery, if you will.
The streetlights end before the county line. Our merry little sleigh slipped along the roadway as we giggled, caught up on important news and essentially had Bunco with everything but booze, dice and Angela. I drove so slowly and carefully at one point Jeph asked why I was stopping at all the stop signs. "You blow right through them in the summer," he pointed out.
As it got more remote and if there wasn't another car in the area, I did start to slide through the stop signs, agreeing that it was safer to keep going rather than risk slipping.
"This is going to be fun going home in the dark," I muttered.
We arrive safely in Brownsburg and commence to having a good time, good food and libations. I had a couple glasses of wine early, but switched to water as I was the DD. Let me tell you friends, Bunco is way more fun when you're all imbibing.
At 9 o'clock, I go out to prep the car for departure. It had continued to snow - ending just shy of 6 inches - but we'd driven through the worst of it. I suggest it's time to go. Pushback is attempted and denied. Drinks are downed. Hugs are distributed. We squeeze back into the Subaru.
We slide onto 86th Street at its most remote and dark segment. It's black as an underground coal mine and people are flying down this snow-crusted road. I inch closer to the edge so we don't crash into each other or get clipped by a plow on the various pickups that barrel down the pathway.
Jeph, Amy and Ann are in the back, giggling over something. My fingers are cramping as I clutch the steering wheel. I feel my neck seizing up.
I don't know if I flinched, if I hit a rut or if the creatures living in the frigid water at the bottom of the ditch to my right were hungry and pulled me over, but I edged just enough over that I wasn't fully on the road anymore.
"It's an adventure!" Amy calls out from the back.
She slid out of the Subaru, 100 percent sure she and Jeph - who was wearing ankle sock and some kind of slipper-like shoes and hadn't brought gloves - could push us back onto the road. They immediately slide into the ravine.
"Damn it's cold out here," Jeph reported.
"Where are your gloves?" Amy asked, just noticing that Jeph hadn't dressed for the weather.
Amy was wearing a hat and gloves, with some kind of Christmas-themed lederhosen kind of socks. Between the gear and the wine she'd had, she was impervious to the cold. She could have been out there naked digging through the snow like a drunken honey badger and never notice the frostbite.
"I didn't wear gloves," the equally inebriated Jeph responded. "And my feet are f-ing freezing."
Slumped over the steering wheel, wondering how I was going to explain this to the Captain, I was momentarily pleased that Jeph was so confident in my winter driving abilities that he'd been so irresponsible. I hand my gloves to him through the window, which we had to leave down - it was about 7-degrees at this point - in order to hear what they were reporting re: the tires and snow and proximity to the ravine.
They position themselves to push the car as I tried to slowly nudge it back onto the road. It was like driving on half-frozen snot. We just kept slipping closer and closer to the ditch, which just got deeper as the Subaru's tires spun. Meanwhile, snow plows and Jeeps and trucks are whizzing by us like were in the heart of the retail district.
OK. They might not have been going at Daytona speeds, but there were a lot of them. One guys stops to try to help, also not wearing gloves. He tries for a long time. The ditch just keeps getting deeper and closer. We thank him but send him away. I start Googling for tow trucks, knowing we're in the wilds of Hendricks County and the chances of getting a tow are about as good as finding a pair of albino cats in a snowstorm.
And then I remember Bree lives in Brownsburg. Bree has Chad. And Chad has a truck. As I call, the Honey Badger and Jeph are still outside the car in whizzing traffic in the dead of the night. Ann is trying to get them back in the car, but they still think they can get us back on the road. A Jeep stops, and they're talking to two women in the road, knocking on my window as I'm trying to tell Bree where I am and the situations we're in. It's about 10 p.m. Not only does Bree have Chad, her brother and father are at her house.
I'm talking to Annmarie, whose GPS we were using to get home, trying to give Bree a precise location. Bree is trying to tell me how to drop a pin. Ann is telling me what her phone map is showing. Amy is pounding on the window and Jeph is shouting that the Jeep people have a tow line. His feet are still freezing, FYI.
I thought my head was going to explode. I close the windows and focus on Bree. Ann drops a pin. Team Emsweller is en route. I take a deep breath. Lyn reaches over to hold my hand.
I lower the window and tell the Honey Badger - still energized and apparently toasty warm - that we have a solution as she and Jeph crowd the window to tell me - again - that the Jeep people can tow us out.
"I don't know them," I said. "I know Bree. We're waiting for Bree."
"Who's Bree?" Amy asks, but reluctantly waives off the Jeep people.
"Get back in the car," I say.
She stays out there, digging snow from the tires and laying newspaper that Ann - in a moment of brilliance had insisted we bring in case we needed traction. Cars and trucks continue to drive past us. Amy is still not in the car. It's still black as a witch's cauldron.
"Get back in the car, Amy," I say as Jeph crawls inside wondering if he has frostbite on his nether regions.
Amy is bouncing up and down. "I have the tires all cleared. Let's try it again," she says.
"Get in the car, Amy," I say. Or something like that. There may have been other words. Who can say at this point?
Ann encouraged her to get in the car. Amy is still ditch-side. Finally, she opens the door and tries to climb in. She keeps falling back toward the ravine. Her arms are on the car seat. The rest of her is dangling. "I can't get traction," she reports.
"How about you try getting in on the other side?" I suggest, kindly, I'm sure. "Ann can scoot over to sit by the door.
Amy slithers up the ditch bank, waits for another car to go by and finally gets back in the car. We sit in there, counting the various headlights that come and go. The ditch seems even deeper. I wonder what the Captain is going to say. I count my blessings for Bree and for the foresight to fill the car up with gas.
My phone rings: "Your white knights are approaching," Bree says as the biggest pickup truck I've ever seen pulls up behind us. And yes, it's white.
Drew, Bree's brother, and Chad, her fiancé hop out. We chat a bit, then I offer to let one of them drive while they work whatever magic they have. I go back to the truck to thank Bree and her dad. I offer kidneys and cash.
I barely closed the door before Chad and Drew had the Subaru well away from the ditch. I thank them. We all thank them. They follow us a bit before taking the turn to get them back to whatever they were doing before I called. I can only imagine what these guys were thinking. "Who wants what?!" they must have said when I first called. Bree, God love her, is as much a hero as they were.
While it seemed simple for them to get us back on the road, Bree said the men agreed during their drive home that had I actually been in the ditch, even their beast of a vehicle wouldn't have gotten us out.
As we drove home, Jeph kept talking about how his "crawlspace" hurt because he was so clenched up in the back seat. I keep the seat warmer on high trying to ease the knots in my back.
The Honey Badger, upon being delivered, finally, safely home, suggested that we come in and have a beer. I would have run her over if she'd gotten close to my bumper.
I got home at midnight to find Jeff and three of his buddies still going strong. I had a conversation with them but couldn't tell you now what was said.
I was so tensed up from the three-hour drive that when I laid down, I couldn't fully lay down. My fingers were still curved around the wheel and my memory foam mattress didn't recognize me. I swear my butt is still clenched.
I woke up this morning, less tense, but still feeling it. I shoveled the driveway hoping to shake something loose.
We have Carmel Symphony tickets this afternoon.
I won't be driving.
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