DON’T PARK IN THE DRIVEWAY

I like to make a memorable entrance to a party, and I want to do it NOW, before my friends get Alzheimer's and can't remember it. The best way is to come in with a BANG. That bang you heard was me parking my wife's car on top a small, medium-sized large rock. The rock itself wasn't that big, but it had a pointy top, and looked a little like that thing the Titanic ran into.

My intentions were good. There were a zillion cars parked in the driveway already, because we arrived late as usual. That is why whenever we ask, "What can we bring?" no one ever says hors d'oeuvres. I did not want to get involved in the whole driveway imbroglio. You should NEVER park in the driveway unless the host is a total a-hole with no friends.

So I do what I always do and say, "Honey, you get out here and I'll park the car somewhere safe." My wife already knows that my sense of danger is unparalleled, and so is my parking.

Meanwhile, this guy lives in the woods, where everybody thinks they're a big hero for not paving the road. That way their horses won't get a big pain in the asphalt, or whatever.

So the non-driveway parking options were limited at best. But I spotted the perfect Acura-sized clearing in the woods, like the Pilgrims had hewn it into the land just for me! The only potential problem was that rock sitting in the middle of it- it was more like something between a stone and a boulder.

I even got out to survey the rock. I did some quick calculations in my head, involving square roots, cosines and the Pythagorean Theorem. I got a 425 on my math SAT, so I didn't really know the Pythagorean Theorem from a hole in my ass.

I didn't want to get the car stuck in the soft Earth, so I revved the engine to about 6,000 RPMs and popped the clutch. I vaulted up the hill and would have launched the car into a treetop had I not planted the skidplate of the Acura dead center on top of the rock. If I had thought to factor the soft Earth idea into my calculations, I probably would have been okay. I put it into reverse, but by that time both wheels were spinning away on either side of the rock without a care in the world.

I got out of the car and panicked when I saw some smoke, but then I realized it was coming from my wife's ears. Yes she was angry with me, with that look that made me wonder if my organ donor card was properly filled out. I was angry too, with those dick-brains at Acura for designing a car with such crap ground-clearance.

I had this vision of a big hole in the oil pan, spewing bubbling crude as if Jed Clampett just shot a hole in it looking for some food. By the way, who looks for food by shooting holes in the goddamn ground?

My wife was already dialing AAA, or so I assumed, unless it was a good divorce lawyer in the event that the car wasn't the only thing on the rocks. I said no- let's try and get some of the party guests to help us push the car off the rock. I can't be the only idiot who has ever done this. My wife gave me that look that lets me know that she thinks I am something of a pioneer in the field of idiocy.

Since we're two and a half hours late, everyone is experiencing varying degrees of sobriety.

"Listen, folks, we're going to need some help, our car is on a rock."
"your car is in Iraq?"
"Oh man..."
"Not Oman- he said it's in Iraq...."
"No I ran it onto a rock."
"Iran? I thought you said it's in Oman?"

I immediately drank four beers so that we could all converse in the same language.

We recruited three volunteers to push the car, and approximately forty people followed us outside because they could not believe that we could pull this off without doing something life-threatening or mildly entertaining, or both.

Tom, sensing the opportunity to somehow extract his car from the driveway quagmire, started an avalanche of events that was nothing short of epic. At that moment, someone else had to leave the party. Three others had just arrived to the party, barricading both the driveway and the exit to my rock.

Everyone who was not involved in the rock fiasco was looking for whoever had the car that was blocking them in.

"Who brought the Cougar?"
"That's my wife, dipshit."
"Is that your Escort?"
"That's my wife's sister, fuckface."
"So you drove the Midget?"
"That's my kid, and I'm about to put your face where your ass used to be."

All of a sudden every vehicle, large and small, was fired up and moved 12 feet in whatever direction could most efficiently block the way of two other vehicles. Four other cars with no dog in the fight chose the exact moment to approach the area from different directions. It was a Rubik's cube of cars. It was a vehicular vortex. It was a motorized maelstrom.

Somebody's Dodge narrowly dodged a Ram, and vice-versa. Somebody's Mustang nearly ended up in a Rodeo. Somebody's Impala narrowly escaped a Safari.

The situation subsided for short window of opportunity, but there was an SUV with its lights on directly in back of my rock. When I looked in the driver's seat I noticed that she was using the valuable moment to floss her teeth while smoking a cigarette, something that I had not previously thought possible. I believe that she may have been dentally retarded.

We were finally ready to heave the car back onto level ground. There was much negotiation about exactly what "on the count of three" means. Not everyone at the party spoke perfect English, so the numbers also needed to be translated. I started the count: "One.... Two...." Everyone by that time was pretty tired of the whole operation and pushed the car off the rock before I even got to two-and-a-half.

It's a week later and my wife still gives me a derisive look when I tell the story, but say what you will; that rock is one of the few places I have parked that I didn't get a ticket.

Incidentally, the ground clearance of an Acura TSX is 5.9 inches.