On Saturday, After coaching at the conference swim and dive meet, I experienced a nearly perfect, peaceful day with Travis. We were bundled up on the couch, watching some movie that was based on a true story for part of the day. Travis played guitar. We used that glorious bathtub. We drank a really nice bottle of wine for no reason at all. Around 8:30, Tessa called from work. She said, “So, my car is a block of ice. What do I do?” Apparently, this northern girl had never had to chisel her car from an ice block. How is that possible? I gave her instructions on starting the car with all defrosters blasting (and the seat heater) and finding that elusive scraper, which is probably under a seat somewhere. Then, apply elbow grease. I also gave her specific instructions on how to drive on the icy roads. We picked the route from work to home that was most likely to be salted, actually settling on Sedley Road despite its impressive, sloped bridge over the railroads, because they HAD to salt that. 

This news set off all my Mom alarms though. When I hung up, Travis and I looked at each other and simultaneously said, “THE DRIVEWAY!” The relaxing portion of the day was over anyway, since we were living in an ice sculpture and now my little girl had to drive home on the icy roads. Travis was quick to break out of our couch cocoon, getting to the door with impressive speed, slipping on shoes, and exiting through the front door. I moved like the wine filled, warm, relaxed sloth that I was in that moment, despite the panic in my chest. By the time I got to the door, Travis came in looking quite a bit worse for the wear, holding two of our salt shakers (Haldeman Salt Shakers = containers of driveway salt that are placed just inside our front door, next to the 50 lb bags of driveway salt, all winter so they can be quickly accessed). One of the salt shakers was crushed beyond recognition. The other one looked bad too. Trav had a wild look in his eyes. Despite knowing exactly what had happened, I asked, “WHAT HAPPENED???!!!!”

He replied, “I was salting the driveway and it happened just like in the cartoons. One second I was on my feet and the next second, both feet were straight up in the air and I had gone from my feet directly to my shoulders without anything in between touching the ground. But I had no time to contemplate my pain because I was hurtling toward the ice covered street, where a car has absolutely no chance to stop, even if they noticed me speeding down the driveway on my back. I had to come up with a way to get to an edge. When I finally grabbed something and pulled myself to the side, I ended up slamming into the mailboxes. That’s what stopped me from flying into the street!” Travis said all of that in a massive rush of adrenaline, as if it were one sentence. 

See, we actually have strange rules in this house, like no salting the driveway alone if there is black ice. Since I was right behind Travis, I didn’t think of it. But it always happens so FAST! The other rule is that you salt from the safety of the edge of the driveway. Travis broke both those rules. Plus, he was wearing the slip on gym shoes that we leave by the front door to take out trash. Not exactly appropriate footwear for ice. And he had no coat, not that that really mattered, but somehow it was aggravating. 

But we had no time to discuss any of this, because our girl was driving home in this icy wonderland. I called in the reinforcements. Both boys were home too, so I called them to join in the salting, from the safety of the crusty snow on the edges of the driveway. Oh, that’s another house rule. If you are home, you must drop everything for a driveway emergency. This could be salting, pushing a car up the driveway, pushing a car that slid off the side of the driveway out of our front yard, pulling a car out of the neighbors yard that slid down the drive, across the road, and into their yard, leaving tell-tale tire marks behind. All of these things have happened to us. The boys didn’t even question it. It’s like the internal volunteer firefighters. Hear the call, dress and come to assist. 

We had a new problem though. One of the bags of salt had been left outside and all the salt had clumped, making it useless in our shakers. This is when the boys discovered the usefulness, and sheer joy of salt balls. You heard it here first. They grabbed arm loads of salt balls and smashed them on the ice coated driveway (from the safety of the snow bank), watching them shatter in a glorious constellation of crystals. And it was amazingly effective, considering we were a shaker down. 

I have rarely felt relief like I did when I saw Tessa’s car slowly creep around the turn onto our street. We pushed her up the hill, with the car in low gear, and celebrated another victory, albeit with one injury. And I gave Travis a deep tissue back massage with some Vitamin E oil when we got in the house. So, how was your Saturday? 

Have a great week everyone!