The Cake Walk

The other day my (almost) ex-husband got stuck in a snow bank about a mile up the road from me. I have a four wheel drive. Therefore I am the appointed hero for today. But I’m not feeling particularly heroic. I’m feeling cold and cranky and my water is frozen and I want to eat cake and wear my pajamas and stay snug in my old-lady house. And, I mean, let’s face it: If he’s stuck, doesn’t that mean I’m going to get stuck, too?

Then again, I can’t just leave him there to turn into a people-sicle. Can I?

Decisions, decisions. What’s a (co-dependent) almost ex-wife to do?

(Sigh) Layers on. Socks. Thermals. Jeans. Flannels. Coveralls. Boots. Scarf. Hat. Gloves. Coat.

Stepping outside into the calm after a storm always makes me feel a bit like Alice in Wonderland.  The world has grown new features overnight, sprouted hills and valleys where once there were great barren plains. Boughs hang heavy from the trees, shoulders drooping beneath the weight of the snow. And my normally good tempered barns bare their teeth with icicles while cotton candy stretches between the fence posts, spun thick and white and sweet where there used to be barbed wire.  The outbuildings are nestled into new hillsides. And sometime during the storm, huge drifts have sidled up to the house like Polar bears trying to stay warm. 

I don’t want to venture far into this land. It is cold. It is strange. And it is formidable.

But then there’s that people-sicle waiting on me.

I let the glow plugs warm and then start the diesel. The Big Beast growls to life, angry to be disturbed from his winter’s nap. The first bank of snow waits at the end of the driveway. It slows us, which only annoys the Beast more. I step on the gas and he growls louder, plowing through the crust, sending it spraying away in fluffy plumes.

I smile.

This could be fun.

The snow has blown into the roadway, filling the bar ditches. I know that somewhere below lies a road as lumpy as a third grader's first attempt at baking a cake. But the snow, like icing, hides the ridges and potholes, creating a frosty illusion of perfection.

For the record: snow lies.

The Beast is not intimidated. I stop on top of the hill and put it in four wheel high.

“Piece of cake,” I say, adjusting my sunglasses.

Famous last words should be easy to eat, right?

Good. Cause I’m eating them less than a quarter mile later, when the Beast is consumed by a giant confectionery blob. It swallows us whole, sucking us down into its soft white belly. I try rocking. I try rolling. I try cussing. Finally, I open the door and step out into snow up to my knees. A few steps to the left and I’m in over my thighs. I decide to return to the Beast, lest I fall into a hole and not be found until spring.

Back inside the cab of the pickup, I reach for my phone to call the almost-ex.

“I’m stuck.”

“I see.”

I lower my glasses. Yep. There he is. About a half mile away facing the opposite direction, half submerged in icing.  There is a life-lesson in this, I think. Something about drowning people not being able to save each other. Or two people going in opposite directions, spinning wheels and getting nowhere. Just burning up energy.

“The snowplow is coming,” he says.

I hang up. Then call him back. “You won’t forget to tell him I’m stuck too, right?”

That I even had to ask…

I close my eyes. Such dysfunction.

Half hour later, blade shining, chains glinting from his tires, the snow plow towers over the Beast, carefully scraping away the frosting and wiping it on the edge of the road. The driver hooks a chain to the Beast and slowly pulls us out of the bank.  With a wave and a grin, he rumbles on, carving a deep furrow as he goes.

I look up and my almost ex is facing me on the narrow tunnel of a road. Bumper to bumper. Truck to truck. One of us is going to have to back up, but who?

My truck is bigger than his. And it’s a standard.

I rev my engine. He backs up a little bit. I move forward the same distance. He backs again. I edge forward. I throw my hands up as if to say, What are we doing here? Are we going to cake-walk our way back to the highway? Just then the banks of snow open up and I spy tufts of grass on the side of the road. Calculating the risk, then throwing good sense to the wind, I angle the Beast’s butt into that little wedge. Pull forward. Back. Forward. Back. Until we are both facing the same direction and I am free to go.

Maybe, I think, if we had shown the same level of cooperation when we were married. Maybe if he’d conceded even a little bit, things would have been different.

But they aren’t.

It is what it is.

And I am free to go.