Tag: personal narrative

Darn that center console!

Why, why, WHY is the car designed with enough room to dump the entire contents of your refrigerator between the seat and the center console, but not enough room to put your hand down there to pick the stuff up?

I didn’t even see what fell.

But I knew that I had to retrieve it because one day soon I might be stuck in a situation where a much-needed item wouldn’t be at hand when necessary.

I reached down to fish it out, whatever it might be.

Just like the roach motel, I checked in.

But I couldn’t check out.

My hand was stuck.

Firmly stuck.

A metal rod was wedged into my forearm, pinning it down.

I couldn’t move.

I had the brilliant idea to move the seat backward to release my hand.

But I couldn’t reach the seat adjustment knob.

Because my arm was pinned down.

I immediately thought of that book, Mrs. Bridge, when India Bridge’s car stalled halfway out of the garage, and she was stuck, unable to open the door in the freezing winter weather.

Of course, in her day, she didn’t have a cell phone available to her.

I started to laugh, imagining my call to 911.

Our garage is small, and parking is tight on both sides.

There’s no way the fire department could fit in here to help me.

They would have to knock down some walls and use the jaws of life to free my hand.

Yeah, nah, that’s a big nope.

I’ll figure this out by myself.

Even if it kills me.

And it might.

Well maybe not kill, but certainly maim, or, possibly, dismember.

Eventually, with a lot of painful effort, and perhaps a few unconfirmed F-bombs, I finally freed my hand.

I’m going to have a bruise.

It turned out that what I had dropped was some chapstick.

Seriously?

All of this grief, potential humiliation, and possible jaws-of-life property damage for a chapstick?

Somebody has GOT to come up with a better design for that center console gap.

What we’re working with isn’t working at all.