I am an idiot

I had a little not-so-fun adventure today. I wanted to take Chickie to the Children's Museum today-- that place rocks, and he was clearly in a physical, I-need-to-run-around mood this morning. We got a late start-- the Museum opens at 10, so it makes the most sense to leave the house by 9:30 to get there by 10 in order to have a good chunk of time there before we would have to come home for lunch and nap.

I am a cheap Indian lady and always look for on-street parking before parking in he damn lot and giving them my vital organs so that I can ditch my car for a couple hours. I found a spot on the street in a Resident Parking Only area, but seeing as it's Sunday and we were only going to be there for a hour or so anyway (we were running way behind schedule-- don't ask), I figured it wouldn't matter. The spot I found was at the end of a row of parking spots, and because it's been snowing all the time for athe past month, there was a big ol' snow and ice bank in front of the spot. I decided to back into the spot because you nearly always have better luck backing in (IMHO).

I have lived in Boston for nearly 10 years and have never had a driveway or a parking space. I've always driven small cars that I pride on being able to fit ANYWHERE, and I also have this weird feeling of being able to drive over anything when I'm in my car, even though it's a Civic and not a Hummer. And besides, it's SNOW, not a brick wall, and I'm sitting in tons of steel, so who should win? Famous last words. So, I start backing into the spot, and I miscalculate where the snow bank is, and WHAM-- I'm stuck on it. Yeah, I know-- go forwards a little, backwards a little, and again and again, but that doesn't work when your little car is stuck on TOP of a big mound of ice. Check it out:


TOTALLY moronic. Meanwhile, my poor child (who thinks we're going to go play) is starting to freak out-- understandable. I too am starting to freak out because I have NO freaking idea how I'm going to get the car out. The only tool I have in my car is a plastic ice scraper, so I start hacking away at the ice mound, but to no real avail. Some very nice guy comes by and tried to give me a push, but the car was STUCK. Some asshole lady pulls up and asks if I'm leaving, and I'm like, "Actually, I'm trying to leave, but I'm stuck. As soon as I dislodge my car from this mountain of ice, you're more than welcome to this spot." IDIOT. She was instantly sorry and offered to help (albeit in a somewhat perfunctory way), but I was sort of done by that point and was like, "Well, do you have a shovel?" and when she didn't I just shrugged.

I had called Dan twice by that point, and I finally called him again to say that he either needed to come help me or I was going to have to call AAA, and at that point, the nice guy showed up again behind the wheel of an SUV and offered to pull me out. The guy actually had a big rope in the back of his truck (dunno what he does in his free time-- don't really want to know), and he tied our cars together and pulled me out. THANK GOD!

Thankfully, Chickie had calmed down by this point (the trick was getting him to yell, "one, two three!" when the guy was trying to push us out, and thankfully, he never found it necessary to stop counting and start crying again), so we got the hell out of there and drove home. Never again will I try anything stupid like that!