All Wound Up by Stephanie Pearl–McPhee Read Free Book Online Page A

and waiting for Joe to come home, the phone rang. I answered, since a phone call at 12:30 A.M. usually means something very interesting is happening, and lo, it surely was.
    Me: “Hello?”
    Joe: “You’re not going to believe this.”
    Now, it was a week before Christmas, the washer was broken, we were under the gun to get Christmas ready, I was on a “knitting schedule,” the news was calling the snowstorms headed our way “Snow-maggedon,” and we had just found out that neither of us was getting paid before the end of the year. There was not much that I wouldn’t believe at that point, and Joe knew that, so “You’re not going to believe this” was a pretty bold statement.
    Me: “Okay. Go.”
    Joe: “I’ve got the pickup stuck at my Mum and Dad’s and I can’t get it out.”
    Me: “Really?”
    Now, see that? He was right. Joe’s from Newfoundland. He can drive in any amount of snow. Joe never gets stuck. Ever. Dude knows how to drive in any amount of stuff, and he’s experienced enough to not drive if it’s really not possible. If Joe was actually stuck, then I was stunned. I was also knitting, and it was after midnight and cold, so I was also really not buying that he needed me to get him out. If Joe couldn’t handle a driving problem, I really wasn’t going to be able to.
    Me: “Seriously?”
    Joe: “Seriously. Baby, I’m stuck.”
    Me: “Why don’t you try a little longer, and if it turns out you’re really stuck, then I’ll walk over.”
    I said that because, frankly… I just could not believe Joe was stuck. I believed that what Joe was actually saying to me could be translated more like, “Honey, I’m frustrated so I wanted to share, but I’ll work it out like I always do because, well, I’m Joe.” I mumbled something sort of sympathetic, like, “I’m sure you’ll get it” and hung up the phone and finished my row. About twenty minutes later the phone rang again, and I was pretty sure it was Joe calling to tell me that he was out, and I should never mind, and he’d be home in a minute.
    Me: “Hello?”
    Joe: “Baby, you gotta come help me. I’m really stuck. I’m so stuck. This is bad.”
    Bad? Joe doesn’t get into bad trouble backing out of a parking spot at his mum’s. It wasn’t like she lives in rural Ontario and he could be in a ditch. It wasn’t like there was a ten-foot snowdrift to be stuck in, or he had the car hanging off a cliff over the sea. He was three minutes from home in a back alley drive. Bad?
    Me: “Bad?”
    Joe: “You gotta come.”
    Me: “Joe, what’s going on?”
    Joe: “Well, I was trying to back out, but there was a BMW, so I didn’t want to hit it, you know? So I pulled up between the garage and the light pole, but the truck slipped on the snow and ice.”
    Me: “Slipped? Why don’t you get out and dig yourself out? Why don’t you give up and we’ll deal with it in the morning?”
    Joe: “I told you, Steph. It’s really bad.”
    We kept talking, and here’s what I came to understand.
    Joe had the pickup truck (which is a completely eccentric piece of junk that only starts every day due to a small miracle) parked at the bottom of his parents’ garage. There was a BMW (which we can’t afford to breathe on, never mind hit) parked behind him, so he pulled forward slightly, between the light pole and the garage, and was then going to reverse out. Unfortunately for Joe, as he drove forward, a most unexpected thing happened. The light rear end of the truck suddenly fishtailed out, the front end swung in (what with them being attached like they are), and whammo… The truck was suddenly and entirely wedged in diagonally between the garage and the light pole, which are, in a remarkable coincidence, spaced exactly as far apart as the truck is wide. Joe pulled forward, spun on the ice, tried to rock back, spun on the ice, and somehow, in a trick that reminds me of that crazy Chinese finger trap, only succeeded, with every minuscule move he