Sammy Goes Off-Roading

You've met Sammy before--a little, white rear-wheel drive Toyota pickup with a paint-chipped hood, nearly 200,000 miles, and the faithfulness of having been in the family for about 9 years. Sammy's a good egg, albeit a little bit of a speckled one these days what with all the road muck sprinkled on his white shell from the winter roads.

This afternoon, however, Sammy wasn't so sure about listening to directions, even with the four big buckets of sand behind his wheelwells. He thought it was more fun to get a running start on the road and then to slide, his hands out in the air for balance, truck cap tape fluttering behind him, trailer hookups dangling.

He got to showing off a good deal, much to the chagrin of some folks, triumphantly calling out at one point, "Look, mom, no front wheels!" as he slid up a hill on the ice-glimmering road. With that, his front wheels indeed went all squirrelly and he himself did a curly-que that ended in an ungraceful faceplant into the juniper and snow filled ditch.

There just so happened to be passing by a couple fellows who were willing to haul him out and dust him off, none the worse for the wear, and who even kindly offered to follow him home lest he get into any more shenanigans on the way. So Sammy tried hard. He pointed his nose straight ahead. He hunched forward to tried to keep his wheels straight. But the shellacked road was just too temping. Off the road he went again in another face plant, finding snow in his nose after being hauled out the second time by his bumper.

This time Sammy decided to stay put. No more adventure. He pulled himself off the road into a little clearing and made ready to nap there, shutting off the shine of his eyes with sleepy eyelids and agreeing to wait out the ice long as necessary, just wishing he were tucked into his sheltering garage some five miles south.