Breaking the ice

February 16

7:30 pm
Carlos wanted to go to lab for just half an hour to change a couple things for his experiment. And I decided to tag along because I needed to get a couple books from work anyway, plus I could finish up my taxes while I waited for him.

7:35pm
We get to our car and find this:

(This is actually someone else's car in a very similar situation...poor guy. Although our car was completely covered with snow.)

So we started chipping the layer of snow on the roof away. At first, we were having quite bit of fun. We pretended to be super heroes and made grunting sounds with each chunk of ice we chipped off the roof. Then we started digging away with a plastic shovel around the tires and hit ice. That's when we pulled out "the club" and used it as an ice pick. After about an hour of chipping, cheering Carlos on, stepping on the gas to no avail, we both gave up and resorted to pouring hot water around the tires.

9:00pm ROUND TWO!
After Carlos re energized himself with cereal, we came back with 5 gallons of steaming hot water and cooking salt. (Where did the gallons come from, you may ask? A milk and water container from our apt, and couple OJ containers which I dug up from the shared apartment recycling bin.) After the water pouring we moved up about five inches...not bad. A lady interested in taking over our parking spot, gave us a larger shovel and about a cup of "ice melting salt." Yeah...I don't think the salt helped. Anyway more chipping, revving...and nothing. Then a really nice guy, Matthew came up and offered some help. With a little bit of car rocking and a couple pieces of wood he had behind his work place, we finally got out of our spot. Phew!!!!

We thanked the Matthew a bigillion times and in the end we found out that he was a man of God and he spends most of his time performing good deeds and helping the common man. He gave us his number and a book about the teachings of the bible. We thanked him again, wished him well, gave the shovel back to the lady waiting for our spot, and were on our way.

10:30pm
About 200 feet up, we felt that we needed to make sure that the lady could get into our old parking spot ok. So we back up. Turns out she got stuck in the ice too. Feeling blessed with Matthew's aid, we wanted to reciprocate his kindness upon another in need of help. So we tried rocking her car, using the wooden boards, and her car wouldn't budge.

Eventually, she called her boyfriend to come down and help her out. The boyfriend was more of a nuisance than useful. He kept telling her, "Why did you try to get in this spot? There's no way out. We'll have to AAA you out. No way, no way." Nothing but negativity was emanating from him. Now Carlos and I really had to prove him wrong. If we rocked out, so could she, darnit! So we rocked, she gave it gas, we rocked some more, more gas. Almost there! Carlos and I exchanged a little smirk, knowing that only we needed just a little more. We all grunted and pushed with all our might! And we got her out! A huge sigh of relief and big smiles ran across all our faces, all except the boyfriend.

11:00pm
We shook hands with the boyfriend, who silently admitted his defeat. The lady gave her immense appreciation, wanting to give us a monetary reward. Carlos politely refused and replied, "That's why we helped you, because we didn't have to." He and I left the scene with a good conscience and pride.

Ten minutes later:
We arrived at his lab only to find out that his experiment would take an hour to finish rather than half an hour. Since we were both tired, we knew that was not going to happen. So instead we left the lab and rewarded ourselves at a nearby bar with beer, nachos, and a quesadilla for our hard work.

Our car now:

No snow on the tires!