If you were around 13th Avenue Tuesday night, north of the tracks, you might have heard the sound of a small car’s engine whirring and roaring in a regular rhythm. You may have also heard a door slam, followed but a number of words that I’m not allowed to repeat in writing here.
Long story short, I realized, as my car became wedged in the messy rutted accumulation of snow outside the parking lot of the building in which I live, that a similar sequence of events takes place in my life every time I overestimate how much traction and ground clearance my gutless little Kia has.
This plot arc begins with the one tragic decision that gets me there to begin with; the decision to power through. “Hell with it,” I think, coming upon a particularly robust and deep patch of snow, rutted and packed until it looks like something from the surface of the moon. “I made it this far without any trouble. Sure, I sort of slid to a stop on Souris back there, but I think I can get through that if I accelerate a bit…”
Only, that’s not to be. Accelerating a little, to try and push through that packed, nearly solid accumulation of snow only leads to me burying myself all the more profoundly in that snow. Like putting out a grease fire with a bucket of water, I have unwittingly only made things all the worse by attempting to rectify them. With a sinking of my wheels and heart, one of the most familiar trials of the Canadian winter truly begins.
Most guides you consult with any relevance on the matter of getting your car unstuck from the snow unequivocally advise, at one point or another, not to spin your tires. Nothing good can come of that. You just dig yourself in deeper, etcetera, etcetera.
Unfortunately not slamming your foot on the thin pedal requires at least a modicum of patience—something I quickly run out of after my third or fourth attempt to dig out the snow around my wheels. The problem is that slamming on the accelerator and hoping I can just “power out of it” is the next thing I do.
Why? I’m a comfort seeking creature. If I can convince myself that I don’t have to get out of my car and brave the howling, frigid Prairie winter winds, I won’t. So I don’t. I try at least a good two or three times to extricate myself by accelerating, slamming on my brakes to stop my wildly spinning tires and then reversing.
That accomplishes nothing. Eventually, I reign in my rampant id, realize that I’m being unnecessarily hard on my engine and tires, put on my big kid boots and get out of the car. Good enough.
From then on comes the next act in the tragedy that is a stuck car: the end less loop of digging. How much snow do you actually have to remove before you can actually get traction? That’s one of life’s greatest mysteries. One that I never have a better opportunity to contemplate and mediate upon as I dig around each wheel, paying special heed to the front wheels that appear to be in knee-deep snow.
Does anything short of roof shingles stuck under your tires give them any increased traction? I don’t know, but cardboard rips to shreds and comes out in a flurry of little brown chunks when you try to use it for traction.
This stage of the story is where despair sets in—the loop of constant digging, followed by a hopeful starting of the car and a grinding frustration, as no matter how much of the stuff you dig out from under your wheels, they still won’t move.
Often, in this Sisyphean gauntlet of tire spinning, snow digging and ritualistic swearing, people take pity on me. Too proud and frustrated to accept their help, I insist I can handle it on my own. I turned several people away before I swallowed my pride at let two people who watched me struggle for at least a couple of minutes push me out of the mess.
Note to self: Just accept help when it’s offered, get your winter tires and no, your vehicle probably doesn’t have the ground clearance to make it through that much snow.
