I Hate Being a Girl

Okay, so the title may be a bit misleading here. There are many things I LOVE about being a member of the "delicate sex." Shoes, shopping, girlfriends, w(h)ine Friday, and men make being a woman wonderful, but there are times when it is frustrating as hell and I'm NOT talking about "that time of month."

Maybe what I should have said was, "I hate being a city girl in the country." There are some things that kids, boys or girls, growing up in the country are just better at than those of us who were raised in the city. It seems to me that handling all things with motors falls into that category.

On the same day that the drifts of snow consumed Centerville Road, I decided I should grab a snowmobile and head back to town to pick up Dan. In order to even get at the snowmobile, I had to move Dan's big ole diesel truck. Usually, he plugs in the block heater every night to make it easier to start the truck, but of course, that wasn't the case on this day. I patiently waited for the truck to warm itself, and cranked it to turn over. Confident that I had let it run long enough before attempting to move it, I slipped the truck into reverse and eased onto the gas pedal cautiously checking the mirrors lest I take one off as I back out of the barn. HA! Like that would be a problem. After moving less than a foot, the engine died. To restart, I turned off the ignition, turned it half way back, waited for the start lights to go out, and tried again. She fired right up and we tried again...with the same result. Three times I played this little game. Start the truck, inch back, and start over after the truck dies. On the fourth attempt, the truck didn't start. I heard a little tick, tick, tick and nothing else. Oh Shit! Dan would kill me if I'd drained his battery or worse damaged the truck somehow. I decided to give it a few minutes before trying again.

While waiting, I figured I'd use my time wisely and get the snowmobile turned around facing the right direction. Dan had mentioned the night before that there was no reverse on these machines so I knew I would have to drag it to turn it around. Remember earlier when I said I was going to "grab a snowmobile"? Have you ever tried to grab a 450 pound hunk o metal and turn it around? Yeah, you can imagine how well I did on that one. Although I was able to drag the back end side to side like a pendulum, there wasn't enough room in the shop to turn it all the way around 180 to face the other direction. I would have to pull the machine straight back to the middle of the room and THEN turn it. Wasn't gonna happen.

Back in the truck, I was lucky enough to get it started again. Tired of killing the engine every time I tried to carefully back out of the garage, as soon as I put it in reverse, I rev'ed the engine and threw caution to the wind. I got the truck just far enough out of the garage to allow the snowmobile to pass through before the engine died once more.

Resigned to the fact that I wouldn't be able to take the snowmobile to go get Dan, I decided I deserved to have a little fun. We have a number of four wheelers so I decided to take one out for a spin. My first choice, the biggest of them and also the only fully automatic, was torn apart for some reason. (I still don't know what Dan was working on). Next I picked "my" four wheeler to try. Never having luck with getting this machine into reverse, I opted to push it backwards through the shop until I could get enough room to turn it around. This was much easier on a wheeled vehicle than it had been with the snowmobile.

Much to my surprise, it started on the first try (easier than the damn truck) and we were off and flying out the barn doors and around the yard. After a quick spin to get a feel for it, I decided to ride down the road a bit and see if it would be possible for Dan to get home from the west. I turned right out of our driveway and before I even got to the end of our property I saw that this route would be just as impossible as approaching from the east.

Realizing that even an ATV couldn't make it through the approaching drifts I attempted to make a U-Turn and head back for the safety of our pasture. Once again, Mother Nature and the fates spoiled my plans. I'm still not quite sure exactly what happened, but the snow drift ate my four wheeler. That's really the only way to explain it. To a casual observer, it may have appeared that intentionally ran head on into the snowdrift, but I assure you, I'm not that stupid.

I attempted to engage the reverse mechanism, put the ATV in reverse, and back out of the drift. As described earlier, reverse and I don't exactly get again and this time was no different. I failed again. Dismounting the ATV, I straightened the handlebars, walked to the rear of the machine, and began to pull. Already tired from my previous efforts on the snowmobile, my arms, shoulders, and abs groaned under my renewed effort. With each grunt, the snow relinquished a little more of my ATV. After about 5 minutes of tugging, I released the 4 wheeler from the snowdrift.

I pushed it to the middle of the road, so I had room to turn around, remounted the ATV, turned the key, hit the choke and the starter and...nothing. Not home free as I intended. Ok. Problem solve what I know. Make sure its in neutral. Check. Open the choke. Check. Try again. Nada. Wait. Was I supposed to start in first? I don't think so, but leaving my quad in the center of Centerville wasn't an option. Nope. That didn't work either. Back to neutral to try again. What? Fifth? That's not what I wanted. Click Click. Taping on the clutch I moved through the gears (or thought I did anyway). No matter what, I could only find fifth gear. I wasn't finding neutral no matter what I did.

Not wanting to, but not knowing what else to do, I called Dan for any advice he may be able to dispense from afar. Alas, my night in shining armor was nowhere to be found. I was on my own, stuck with a four wheeler that wouldn't start, standing in the middle of the road. Grrrrrrreat.

I knew that I couldn't just leave my toy where it sat. After trying again, I determined I would have to push the stupid thing back into our driveway and let Dan deal with it whenever he finally arrived home. As with everything out here, easier said than done. Without being able to find neutral, the wheels did not want to turn nicely. Essentially, I was back to dragging the snowmobile. I stood to the side of the quad and attempted to push with all my might - or what was left of it. Grrr... this was not pleasant. Remember. The wind that caused this drifting nightmare in the first place had not subsided, in fact, it may have even increased. And to make things even more fun, the sun was slipping beyond the horizon. I had just a few minutes to move this thing off the road before night fell and I had to admit defeat.

Moving to the back of the quad, I gave a hefty push. Movement! Succes....shit! It wasn't the ATV moving. It was me. My rubber rain boots slipped on the ice below me. My left knee slammed into the trailer hitch on the four wheeler. A shock wave of pain rippled through my body to my mouth where it was released in a stream of cusses that would make a trucker blush. Completely exhausted and ready to surrender, I crawled into the seat once more, gave the clutch a tap with my foot, and gave yelp of excitement when the light popped on indicating that the machine had slipped into neutral. Turning the key, the quad fired up on the first try.

Relieved that my four wheeler would not spend the night on the road, I laughed my way up the drive towards the shelter of the shop. Just twenty feet from the open doors, I legitimately misjudged the size of the drift that was slowly overtaking the north end of our driveway. Crap! Stuck again.

This time, I knew exactly how to handle the situation. I dismounted the four wheeler, brushed the snow off myself, and much like Scarlett O'Hara, decided, "I can't think about that right now. If I do, I'll go crazy. I'll think about that tomorrow."