SLEDGE HAMMER WOULD DO IT

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Imagine my surprise when the car started to slide down the mountain just a bit.

The anti-lock brakes were doing that horrible rumble/bump thing, which is typically the first clue that something’s amiss, coupled with the fact that I didn’t want to go downhill anymore, yet we were still going downhill more.

My son asked what was up. I forgot he was there. I calmly replied that the anti-lock brakes were acting up, likely because the car is leased, which is why you should never lease a vehicle – I always lie to my son, but still want to give him practical life advice whenever possible.

Eventually I realized what had to be done – which was to toboggan towards the rocky side of the snow and ice-covered road and run into the nearest convenient rock. It worked. Despite thousands of years of technological evolution, icy rocks are still the best way to stop moving vehicles. And take out frustrations on laptops.

Nature can get really cold it turns out, this day it was an unseasonable 22-degrees. We wouldn’t die, but I really didn’t want to walk 8-miles down the mountain to flag down someone on the highway, nor did I want to go to the guy I saw shoveling hay with a pitchfork earlier and ask for help, because although he was nice when I said “good morning” I’m sensing he lives on a mountain so he doesn’t have to deal with people.

I thought perhaps this was punishment for wanting to shoot grouse. That’s what we were there for. We just shoot them and leave them as a warning to other grouse not to mess with us. Okay fine we eat them, “harvest the land” as it were, but not this time, for the great Grouse Gods were displeased with our presence, as was the mountain.

Eventually I was able to reverse back from the rock then kind of slide down the rest of the road at 4-miles and hour while telling myself and my son “Trust me, I know what I’m doing” over and over. That’s my favorite quote from the 80’s show “Sledge Hammer.” It’s worth a look.

The point of the story is to always take crazy risks with your kid in the car to show said kid that life is about managing critical situations while looking cool. I’m sure he thought I looked cool with my sweaty brow and white-knuckle grip on the wheel. But in my mind, I looked like Brad Pitt in Ocean’s 11. Or something like that.

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Engaging irreverence, occasional coherence, often pointed, mixed with enough indelicate humor as to create a want, a craving for more.