There is frost on the windshield {but the thought of scraping it off makes me mad at every groundhog in the province} so I hike up the defrost fan and spray the wiper fluid even though my dashboard light tells me it's time to refill it.  Snow blows at me as I pilot myself down the driveway and I turn up my heated seat and think about how meteorologists are probably so sick of complaining people and how I was pretty foolish to wear this dress and how 'frigid' is the wrong day to wear pantyhose.

It takes three minutes to get to town - four to get to the coffee shop - and I coast down the hill to the sign boasting our small town beauty. {We're so little we don't even have a website!} I press my foot against the gas pedal.

Nothing.

The engine is still running.  I let my boot push down to the floor.

I glide off the momentum from the hills decent and make a painfully slow turn into The Crazy Dollar Plus parking lot {yes, that's a real store name}.

I am automotively-handicapped {no, that is not a real word}.

I call home. No answer. He's still sleeping.  

I call my father. Because you're never too old to be rescued by your daddy.

While I'm explaining to him what's happening, I step on the gas. The engine revs like normal.  "Maybe it's okay...?" I say.

"Try and drive over here and we'll see," he tells me.

I squeeze my eyes in a quick little prayer and pull out...er, creep out. I floor it like I'm in The Fast And The Furious but I can't get the needle over 10 km/hr.

I turn left at The Beer Store to avoid the main street and I keep it gunned to the floorboards but it does nothing. There is no revving, no grinding, no smoking. Everything sounds normal except that I'm crawling painfully along Queen Street. 

I can't find the four-way flashers ANYWHERE!!!  Where are they??? 

I'm anxious and I feel like my embarrassed heartbeat is making my throat swollen.

A truck comes up behind me. He's right in my rearview and he can't get around me because people have parked on the street so they can use their snowblowers. 

I just have to get to the parking lot across from the gas station.

Just a little farther.

I think I can. I think I can. I...think...I...can.

So embarrassing.

Seriously...who stole my hazard lights???

I creak into the lot. This must be what being 97 years old feels like.

I call my dad again. "I can't make it," I tell him.

"I'll be there," he says. God bless him!

I turn off the engine because I have a sudden fear that the whole car might explode if I don't.  

My phone finally reaches home. After five tries. "The car's broken," I tell him.

"I'm going back to bed," he says.

I start thinking about how my toes are slowly going numb...

And how the radio is only noise unless you actually listen to it...

And how I just want a tiny bit of sympathy...

And how this was going to cost us two thousand dollars and we don't have two thousand dollars...

And how Roll Up The Rim To Win makes me think I'm getting a new car every single time and then they slap me straight across the face with a big fat, Heck No...

And it'll have to be the money set aside for The Husbands Manly Weekend - maybe that will cover the car...

And how in the world will we pay for all the extra snow removal we've had this year...

And why oh why oh why don't we just have a horse because I'm quite sure hay is a lot cheaper than gas and oil changes and mechanics with $87/hr price tags! 

My father's van pulls up behind me and he is sunshine for my freezing feet and I am exorbitantly glad to leave my tomb and climb into his money-pit and leave my own stranded until someone less automotively-handicapped can attend to it!