Stuff about Minneapolis

Thank You Andrew!

My faith in humanity was restored today. So this morning I put the girls in the car, and headed out to drop them off at daycare. We had just left the house, and as I was approaching the intersection of 36th and Quail, I gently applied the brakes to slow down for the stop sign on the corner. One problem….we weren’t slowing down, we started skidding towards the intersection.
Now this wasn’t some lonely four way stop in the middle of a neighborhood we were coming to, this was super busy 36th Avenue right off Hwy 100 we were coming up on. You know, the kind of main artery with semi’s, ambulances, and cars zipping by at 40-45 mph hoping to get on the highway before the light changes. So if we do slide onto 36th….sh*t is going down and not in a good way.

So let’s review. My two baby girls (ages three and five) are in the backseat, we are sliding on ice towards an intersection of certain doom, and I’ve got about three seconds to figure out what to do. So I went with the one option I had…which was turning the steering wheel as hard as I could to the right so we could hit the snowbank on the corner.

WOOMP! Snow goes flying up on the windshield as we go up and hit the snowbank. Thank God we stopped. I may or may not have uttered a curse word, and then a tiny, nervous voice from the backseat asked me “Daddy, why did you do that?”.

*deep breath* I turned around and asked if everybody was alright, and two little wide eyed unblinking faces nodded at me in unison. “Alright girls, let’s get out of here.” I put the car in reverse, hit the gas, and….listened to my tires spin on the ice and snow. Stuck. Crap.

Did I leave the house this morning with my hat and gloves? No. Like any good Minnesotan, do I keep a small shovel in the trunk for just such a situation? No. Crap. Crap.

So for ten minutes I try shoveling out my front tire with my ice scraper, while jumping back into the car and seeing if it will move. Nothing. Crappity Crap.

Just then I looked in my rearview mirror and saw a little white pickup pull up behind me. A gentleman got out, came up to my car and asked if we were all right. I told him we were fine, but I was stuck up on the snowbank. He nodded and said “I was driving by on 36th when I saw you guys hit the curb, man it sure is icy out here.” I agreed with him and made a crack about the city of Robbinsdale not keeping up on their snow/ice removal. The man smiled, tapped the top of my car a couple of times and said “Alright, let’s get you outta here.”
He walked to the front of my car and looked things over. He had me straighten my wheels, and motioned for me to hit reverse as he pushed. The tires made that maddening “whirwhirwhirwhir” sound as we tried to move backwards. Nothing. Then he said “Hold on, I got something in my truck for this.” He went to his truck and pulled out a big metal bar, and walked backed to the front of my car and started jamming this rod underneath the car, while scooping out the snow with his hands. “Alright let’s try it again!” I put the car in reverse and he pushed with all his might, and then….We Were Free!

I got out of my car, thanked him profusely, shook his hand, and asked him his name. “I’m Andrew, good to meet you.” I continued to thank him, and he just smiled and waved me off. The only other thing he said before he left was “These things happen, we gotta take care of each other.”

So if anybody out there knows a middle aged black man with a salt and pepper mustache, who drives a white pickup with a white topper on back named Andrew, tell him again how much I appreciated his help this morning. And everybody remember…”These things happen, we gotta take care of each other.”

Very true Andrew, very true.