Today I woke up to a little snow. Nothing to really dig out of, but an inch or so of accumulation. No big deal right? Well it's no big deal to me, but then I'm not minivan Mom. You know the type. She's all tucked in her Dodge Caravan decked out with the ever present "Julie #12 Soccer" and "Ryan #25 Baseball" stickers on her bumper, gabbing on her cell phone with one hand, another hand wrapped tightly around her bottled spring water. You know, water for the gym that she says she attends but always skips going to because it interferes with her soap opera schedule. So that leaves no hands for the steering wheel. Not to mention that in the back of the minivan she has stuffed 3 or 4 unruly adolescents throwing packed brownbags of P&B around and tattling to Mom. It's a sensible no hands approach to driving her loaded gun, AKA minivan hell on wheels. No annoyances to distract minivan Mom's attention away from the road and into her own little world of chaos. Despite the rather snow clear roads, minivan Mom manages to find the sole patch of snow that the plow missed. Look out, hell is about to break loose!
The Caravan begins to fish tale. I see her swerve from right to left and back to the right again. I witness the Fiji water spilling and that damn Motorola is finally dropped, unglued from her ear! For the first time in nearly 3 miles of following behind this woman, I actually see her place her hands on that thing you steer a car with. Um, what do they call that? Oh yeah, the steering wheel! Someone should tell her what it's used for and how to use it. Anyway, small childlike heads being to roll in the van's backseat. Sack lunches are tossed into the air, not by free-will this time, but by Dodge Caravan will. The Caravan is living up to it's rep - hell on wheels. It's also important to note the speed we are traveling at so you (the reader) isn't panicking and thinking how insensitive I am at this point. We are going less than 20mph. I kid you not. Yes, she somehow is managing to cause utter chaos on the roadways this morning putting not only her and her kids lives at risk, but mine and everyone else's on the road as well.
After a few seconds pass, which I'm sure felt like eternity to her as she was spinning out of control, the van slides off the road and hits the guardrail. My immediate reaction? "Oh great, just what I need when I am late for work already". Obviously I'm not a morning person based on my initial response to witnessing minivan Mom's fender bender, but come on now, this could of been avoided if she had at least ONE hand on the wheel right? Slamming your car into a guardrail at under 20mph on a bare road just doesn't get alot of sympathy from me - sorry. However, I believe we have a law that states that if you witness an accident and you don't pull over to see if they are ok or call for help, then you could get in trouble yourself. Wonderful. So now I have to help this idiot. I'm really mean this morning huh? I'm usually not so grumpy or cold hearted, but I hadn't had alot of sleep, no breakfast and I worked a 12 hour workday yesterday. All of that on my shoulders plus the fact that I was running late for work today and this woman was going to make me even later, I just wanted to choke her if the seatbelt didn't beat me to it. That's the other thing - she doesn't wear a seatbelt driving either.
As you can tell from this tale, I wish I had that easy button with me. I would of pointed it right at her and slammed it down like I was on the "Press Your Luck" game show - no whammies, big whammies, boom. Reluctantly, but knowing it was the right things to do, I pulled over to see if everything was ok and if I could give her a hand with anything. I would of offered her to use my phone to call for a help, but she did have one. Of course as soon as she put down her driver side window to talk to me, I could see the tears were welling in her eyes. Oh great, even more good luck for me. Now this woman is going to ball. "It's ok, it's ok" I nervously said to her in hopes she would choke it up and get a grip, but no this woman was rattled and lost it. She began balling, not just a tear or two flowing, she was on the verge of hysterics! "Calm down woman" is what I wanted to say in an irritated tone, but I had to be nice because I was afraid if I wasn't, then I might burn in hell one day and see her minivan hell on wheels over and over again...for all eternity! Somehow I got this woman calm and she was fine and her kids were fine. Nobody was hurt except the minivan's wood paneling and the leather stick shift in my car because when I finally was on my way, I had to release some stress by squeezing it as tight as I could. Be on the lookout for a banged up Dodge Caravan with wood paneling coming to terrorize a city near you.
So had this woman been a cute single girl that was kid-free in the same accident, would I of been more sympathetic? Of course, duh! I would spot the problem and say..."Yeah, I got that". After fixing her flat tire, I would boast..."That was easy"...even if I had chased a lug nut across the highway while nearly being struck by a semi. Moral of the story - A damsel in distress is only as hot as the girl looks. Sexist? Maybe. True? No doubt.
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