TheMommyBlog

Disclaimer (to my sweetie, my love): this story has been told so many times that I consider it to be in the public domain. It is only because of my immense gratitude for your not having been seriously injured that I able to talk about it at all.

Several years ago, (it must have been 1999, since the Volvo was still new) Gil was visiting clients up near Sacramento. On the way home, he got a call on his cell and when it became clear that it was going to take awhile, decided to pull off of the freeway (excellent safety precaution). He pulled into a large, empty parking lot bordered on one side by an embankment, and parked alone in the middle of the lot, neatly slotted between the painted lines and nestled up to the concrete parking block.

Some time later, he finished up his call and started the engine. Mind you, he’s sitting there, all alone in this huge empty parking lot. He puts the car in gear and steps on the gas. The car lurches forward, catches for a moment, and then surges over the top of the concrete block. And stays there.

Looking around and feeling relieved that no one was there to see him, he got out and assessed the situation. He was beached, with the front wheels on one side of the block, and the rest of the car and rear wheels on the other. When he sat in the driver’s seat, the car sagged a bit, lowering it towards the ground a few critical inches. To increase the clearance, and along with it his chances for clearing the block, he stood up, put his left hand on the driver’s side door, his right on the steering wheel, and slowly reached toward the gas pedal with his right toe. One goose is all that would be needed to get back over the hump, and then he could just hop in and drive away, right? Wrong.

The car was in reverse. His toe hit the gas, the car surged backward, and the door came at him like a bowling pin machine, knocking him flat and landing him close enough to the wheel to sense it flying past his face. It ws a good thing, too, that he was looking to the side, because the door flew over his supine body, miraculously missing his torso and head, and continued its backward flight along with the now-empty vehicle.

The Volvo continued on toward the edge of the parking lot, up over the curb, and up the embankment. At this point, another car had pulled into the lot, and its two occupants were gaping at the sight of a man actually being run over by a car, and at the car, still running, caught now in the underbrush just off the edge of the lot. They came running to help my husband, eager to make sure he was alright and offer to call the police if necessary. I am pretty sure that at that point, he really did wish he’d been assaulted by a crazed driver, because along about now he was feeling like a total jackass.

Two hours later, as he was standing in our kitchen telling me this unbelievable story, I stood holding our little baby, mouth agape, not understanding at all. He was wearing the same pristine white knit golf shirt and khakis he had on when he left for his appointments. Huh.

He turned to walk down the hall, and as he did, I spied several twigs, a few leaves, several dirty skidmarks, and more than a few pieces of gravel stuck to the back of his shirt.