Tale of Pie

    On Saturday afternoon, Joan made an apple custard pie.  Since we generally go visit the Milnes on Saturday night, I assumed that the pie was probably going to be shared with them. 

    That night when we walked out to the truck for our trip to Milnes, I was surprised at how dark it was outside.  There was no moon, but you could see a million stars sparkling in the dark.  We got into the truck and started down Mountainview road.

    I made the turn onto Highway 16 and had just rounded the first curve, when Joan said, “We forgot the pie.”  I slowed down looking for the first driveway that I could turn around in.   I found one, pulled in then started to back around onto the highway.  I had just committed myself to backing up, when in the distance I saw some headlights rounding the curve.  

    I wanted to quickly get turned around and because it was so dark, I couldn’t really tell where I was,  backing across the highway, and I swung extra wide so that I didn’t end up in the oncoming truck’s lane.  The arc of my turn was too wide and as I slowed, Joan said, “The road”, meaning I was about to drive off of the edge of the road.  

    The rear end of our truck then started a downward movement as it slowly slide down the side of the 8 foot (2.5m) snow covered ditch.  When the ass end of the truck finally got to the bottom of the ditch, we stopped and sat there trying to get our breathing back to normal.  Our headlights were shining upward  into the dark sky, and the whole truck was heavily leaning to the passenger side.  

    No one was hurt, and the truck seemed undamaged, but there was no way we could get out of the ditch without help, so Joan got out her phone and called the wrecker to pull us out.  I had a heck of a time trying to get my door open and climb out.  You don’t realize just how heavy a vehicle door is until you try to open it by lifting it upward.  

    So we waited, for about 30 minutes before the wrecker arrived.  Lots of cars stopped to offer help, but I waved them on or explained that a wrecker was on the way.  Many of those who stopped called me by name, but it was so dark I couldn’t really tell who it was that was speaking to me.  In between the vehicle stops, I enjoyed the multitude twinkling stars, and tried to figure out exactly which ones were officially part of Orion.   Joan was busy calling the Milnes to explain what had happened and to tell them we would be late.

    Once the wrecker came, it didn’t take him long to pull us out of the ditch.  Once back on the highway surface, we drove back home, got the pie, climbed back into the truck and headed to Milnes, one hour late.

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