A Not So Typical Work Day
Last Friday was a normal typical work day for me, until I got in my car to go to work. My car started right up but would not budge. That is when I noticed that my car tires were imbedded in approximately three to four inches of ice in my garage. We have always gotten a little water in our garage from the hillside but nothing like this. I was not sure what to do next.
My husband had already left for work and my son was still sleeping since school was canceled for the day. I went in and took my good work clothes off and called my husband. He was an hour away and told me I had two choices – start chiseling away the ice or sit on the couch and wait for him to come home tonight and do it. I thought real hard about just sitting down and not worrying about it, but then decided I should at least try.
First, I had to text my boss and let him know what was going on. I am pretty sure I started the text out saying, “I bet you haven’t heard this one before…..” It was a little comical to say the least. Next, I headed outside to see what the best way to tackle this ice was. My garage is very narrow and leaves just enough room for me to squeeze out when I park inside, so trying to shovel the ice was going to be difficult. I started chiseling away and after 20 minutes of barely staying upright on the ice, decided I better go wake up my son to at least try to help me. He, of course, thought I was joking about the whole situation until he came outside to see for himself. We determined that the best way to try to win out over the ice was to throw boiling water around my tires and chisel them out.
I have two very large stock pots that I filled up with hot water and continued heating them up on the stove until they were almost boiling. We had a chain set up, I would take a pot of water out and throw under a tire and my son would start to break up the ice. After about 30 minutes the car still wouldn’t budge. We switched spots and I started to try to break up the ice without ruining my tires in the process. My knuckles were bleeding from scraping them on the block garage walls. We were both soaked from carrying and dumping the water and both exhausted.
Throughout this whole process, I was keeping a few of my co-workers up to date on my odd Friday morning situation. At one point, someone told me to “just give up, call it quits”, but it had been two hours and it was a matter of pride now. I was going to get my car out of that garage if it was the last thing I did that day.
Finally after about three hours (there were a few breaks in that time) and 20 pots of boiling water, we were able to get my car out of the garage. My son threw down the spade shovel in the yard and said “I am starving, let’s go eat!!”
