Waist Deep in the Big Muddy

I've had quite an adventurous past 24 hours.

I was at a committee meeting at church (which is to say, a joint meeting of all our committees) last night -- a dark and stormy night, as they say, pouring down rain. When I left, a little early, down the very wet and newish unpaved driveway leading to our new parking lot, I got stuck in the mud. I mean, stuck. And an Intrepid is a low-riding car anyway, so...did I tell you I got stuck?

This bit of driveway drama provided a good excuse to end the meeting formally, and soon a collection of guys, including my pastor, was standing behind my car, observing and shouting helpful directions, trying some pushing, and engaging in intimate Guys-Solving-A-Problem consultation. (I always used to feel somewhat inadequate, as a self-conscious as well as mechanically untrained person, in situations like this, until I experienced enough gaggles of Guys Solving A Problem to realize...they don't know what the hell they're doing either.)

Their joint conclusion: I was stuck. Too stuck to get out without professional help.

My pastor drove me home. Which was a good thing, because at that point I needed some pastoral care, even if it was just a kind of stream-of-consciousness patter ranging from every topic from the evening's meeting to church politics to the white supremacist paranoic nut clusters who live in our parish neighborhood and regularly harrass the padre.

This morning I borrowed FT's Jeep to get to work. Upon turning the key, the windshield wipers came on, there in the garage...and the blade of one somehow hooked onto the blade of the other, ripping it off the arm. What the hell? I exclaimed, aloud. Shit! [Other body-function word]! Omigod! Omigod! I quickly turned the wipers off, but not before the empty arm on the one side passed over the glass. Shit! [Other body-function word]!

Meanwhile this morning, after new but equally unsuccessful attempts to push/pull my vehicle out of the mud, the fellows down at the church called in the tow guy to help. He finally got it unstuck, and my pastor and our friend Turkey drove back to the Big House to drop it off. Then FT, who is having big-time asthma issues and was advised to stay in the house, drove it to my work parking lot...only to find that I'd walked downtown to lunch. I just happened to see her sitting there in my car as I returned.

At this moment I am trying hard to avoid touching any mechanical appliance, and also compiling a mental list of my good qualities, partly to remind myself that I have some, and partly in case I need it at the ready when I get home tonight.

The one extenuating circumstance in all this: Tomorrow we are having a big funeral at our church. As FT pointed out last night, better to have me get stuck in this particular part of our lot than some mourner -- or, worse yet, the hearse -- on the day of the funeral.

As someone once noted, everybody has a job in this life, even if it's to serve as a bad example.