Even though my dad had his pedal to the metal, Ophelia the 1987 Honda Accord was decelerating up the mountain. We pulled over to the side of the road and sighed. I sat in the front seat, making GRE root word flash cards with the remaining sunlight of the day. My mom and grandma sat in the back to provide a mattress for our sleeping dachshund. The trunk was packed with opened Christmas presents.
"We just need to wait for the car to cool down," my dad said.
Half an hour later, Ophelia still would not budge. Ski traffic started building up and the sun set as my dad popped the hood to investigate. A melted cap or something was his consensus. Car lingo is usually lost on me. Then, we all took out cell phones, only to discover that no one had service. Finally, I got the insurance company to come through. But after 20 minutes of dropped calls, my mom dialed 911 and they contacted a State Trooper.
He came with flashing lights and all, just as cousin frost was painting a design on my window that looked like it should have been on a T-Shirt from Urban Outfitters. Because there were four of us and a dog, the towing man who arrived told us to stay in the car. He wore a green beanie and icy blue eyes, as well as a beard that would put any experienced ORU grad to shame. He chained us onto the truck bed. I felt as if we were clanking up a slow roller coaster, except of our car had rolled down the hill, no tracks or hidden cameras would have caught us, only SUV's racing on the highway to get back to Denver.
"This is true faith," my mom said. "We can't see out the window, and we don't know this towing man from Adam."
Fifteen minutes later we arrived at the towing shop in Silverthorne. The towing man was nice enough to cart all of us around town in search of lodging, even when my dog kept barking at him. Hotel after hotel was stuffed to the gills. New Year's ski trips, you know? Dear Life: Would you please let up a little?
"Maybe we could find a stable," my mom said. "There's no room in the inn."
"I hope this means you aren't pregnant," I said.
"Well, I had you 20 years ago," she laughed.
We did find one room. The last suite in town, priced at $350.00 with only one bed. We settled on the towing man taking us all the way back to Longmont, 100 miles from the breakdown site.
"What is your name, towing man?" I asked.
"Adam," he said.
On the ride home, we discussed extreme winter sports, what it was like to sleep on the side of a mountain, the dangers of drinking tap water and the conspiracy of drug makers to kill everyone. Wheat grass was also a predominant topic in our traveling conversation. He also made me try the water he collected himself from a fresh spring above Breckenridge. It was delicious, and pork is evil, we concluded.
My toes are still kind of cold. But we made it home. And again, Ophelia sits dead to the world. WAKE UP CALL!!! It's time for a new car.
