Three Wise Men
A true Christmas story…..
Everyday activities with my Mother often end up as Lucy and Ethel shenanigans that make the most mundane trips, tasks, and errands into memorable experiences. The trip in question today was her annual pre-Christmas pilgrimage to visit her mother (my grandmother) to ensure that nobody has to mail any gifts under any circumstances. Guilt is a powerful motivator, and my Mom makes the trip every Christmas, no matter the rain or sleet or snow or darkest night. I was taking time off from work to undergo chemotherapy, and had the time to accompany my Mom for a rare visit to my Grammie and the rest of the family up north.
A trip to the great north always goes through Freeport, Maine, where we must stop for shopping and lunch before proceeding any further. It had just started to snow, so we skipped shopping and went directly to our favorite lunch. Giddy in the afterglow of butter-laden lobster stew and a rich chocolately dessert, we accidentally jumped on the wrong major highway. How many “major” highways could there be? More than one is all it took. This didn’t deter us, and there was no reason to panic. It would just take a little longer to get there; no big deal. The snow started coming down a little harder, but that didn’t stop us from stopping again for another coffee.
At some point, we decided to take a “short cut” to Grammie’s house that brought us further and further into the path of this snowstorm. The snow began falling even harder, as we stopped for some gas and another cup of coffee. It was slow going since we traveled secondary roads, and the snow was beginning to accumulate.
We finally slogged our way over the hills and through the woods to get to Grammie’s house, and in the home stretch, we turned onto her road, traveled about 200 yards, and went careening off the road into the woods, plowing snow and leaves all over the car. We came to an abrupt stop, though the airbags didn’t deploy, and we didn’t hear that “crunch” sound when you crash into something. It happened so quickly, that we didn’t have time to panic, or scream or anything. Mom just said “oh….oh…………oh!” It was completely quiet for about fifteen seconds, and then we began to panic a little.
Mom began to think aloud how Daddy would kill her if she accidentally killed me before I was cured of my cancer. We just sat there for a few minutes and thought about what we should do. There was no chance in hell of getting a signal on my cell phone, so communication was completely out of the question. It would also be hideous to hike up the hill on the icy, snowy road. We sat in the dark, discussing how we needed a Christmas miracle, when a street light popped on a bit further ahead. Well, having a street light AT ALL in these parts IS a miracle, so we felt lucky. Then two vehicles slowly approached from behind us.
Two men in a pickup truck stopped and gingerly hopped out of their truck. I assured my Mother that this was the part in our “miracle” where we are raped and mutilated and left for dead in the Maine woods. They knocked on the window and asked if they could help us get the car out of the ditch. A third man in a second truck joined them, and said he had chains in his truck to help. I was getting optimistic and assumed the chains were for the car. Indeed they were.
Together, our three wise men expertly hooked up the car (a nice ridiculous car with rear-wheel drive) to one of the trucks, and pulled it out of the ditch in just a few minutes. No bungling, no confusion, no cussing. Just precision car de-ditchification.
We were stunned. We didn’t know what to say except thanks (for the tow, and not raping and killing us); they wouldn’t accept any money for coffee, or dinner, or anything. These kind souls probably felt sorry for these fools from Massachusetts bumbling around in a snowstorm in their stupid rear-wheel drive vehicle. They said they would follow us up the hill to be sure we made it to Grammie’s house in one piece. This was a real blessing, since we went off the road before we even reached the hill.
Say what you will about “men from Maine”, but these gentlemen surely went above and beyond to give us a hand. Above and beyond from our urban expectations, maybe. Maybe they really screwed us by not giving us hot cocoa and a back massage while they heaved our car out of the ditch, while carving a commemorative plaque from the tree we hit – that’s probably how they would have helped the locals. At any rate, I am forever grateful to our wise men, and our Christmas miracle.
When we got to Gram’s house, it was way past happy hour, and we told her the whole story, and WE were told a thousand times that people in Maine are NICE, and that this would NEVER happen in Massachusetts. We discussed a zillion times how my Mother is RIDICULOUS for having a rear-wheel drive vehicle, and car talk invariably leads to talk of airbags. That is another storm to weather, and there was no avoiding that one, as we had used up all our Christmas miracles.
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