Stuck in the Middle with You

Look I like winter as much as the next sane, rational human being (which is not at all), but isn't it enough already? Just when you've dug out from the last snowfall, before you can so much as get the hot chocolate on a burner, its coming down again around here.

Have you noticed how quiet Al Gore gets during the winter? The last thing you want is some Nobel Peace Prize/inventor of the Internet going around saying the world is getting to warm when icicles are forming off your eye lids.

I like Al Gore, I like to imagine he would've made a good president, but here's a good Al Gore related exercise to occupy your mind when you're are shoveling for the fifth time in one day: ask yourself what exactly did he do to win a Nobel PEACE prize? How is talking about something everyone else is talking about bringing peace to anyone?

"What? Mr. Gore says green house gases are going to cause the polar ice caps to melt? Let's lay down our weapons men!"

We all just went a little Al Gore crazy last year, there wasn't an award we couldn't give him! Nobel prizes and Oscars and an Emmy, why I'm pretty sure he also received the WNBA's Rookie of the Year.

Say what you want about his defense, but his drive to the net has all the ladies scrambling.

Right, I digress, I was doing what most of my fellow Canadians like to do, complain about the winter.

I usually try to rise above complaining about such a predictable thing as a season, but a few days ago winter turned on me, and now the gloves (or mittens) are off.

See I had just performed stand-up comedy that night, and it felt good, felt like a really good show. So after all the post show partying my girlfriend and I were driving back to my place.

Did I mention I was feeling good?

It was about 2 AM and the adrenaline was still coursing through my body from the flight or fight response that is standing alone on a stage to a room full of people looking at you as you try to make them laugh. And on this night I did, so maybe I didn't make the right decision, maybe I was just a little to cocky.

I decided to take a short cut on my way home.

I cut through this alley which immediately was a bad idea. Ice and hardened snow gave my shocks a work out. If we weren't bouncing we were skidding.

But I knew this alley and I knew we'd come out on the other side of it quickly.

I knew this alley.

Really.

I did...

...I thought.

Okay, so I couldn't find where the lane way exited back onto the other street. I could've sworn I should've already found it, but here I was still bouncing along.

Then I saw it, the break in garages and back yard fences, my sweet escape.

I turned down it without giving it a second thought.

I probably should've given it a second thought.

Quickly it became clear that this was not part of the public lane way, this was a family's driveway. A family who didn't really practice the art of shoveling their driveway.

Here I was driving right up alongside their house, middle of the night, my headlights bouncing in their windows, but I couldn't turn back now. I was committed. I had to just keep on going.

Within moments I was stuck fast, the battle between snow and tire ringing in a knock out. I wasn't moving anywhere.

I sat there in a strangers driveway contemplating my options. I could wake the people in the house up and explain I had somehow found myself stuck on their property.

No, it really was to cold to stand outside and wait for someone to answer their door. Maybe, I figured, I could just abandon my car and come back for it in the spring.

Nah, they might notice it.

I could go all Oprah on this family's ass.

"Look under your iced over lawn chairs! It's keys to a five year old car!"

Nah, then I'd have to do that whole 'walking' thing again. Things were hopeless, I was doomed. I sat there wallowing in my own defeat.

It was sometime between me imagining how I'd stick car keys to the under side of a chaise lounge and sobbing quietly into my steering wheel that my trusty girlfriend Amanda, got out and pushed the car free.

Yes, she may wear the pants in this relationship, but I like to think my butt looks cute in a skirt.