Well I’m not sure how many dumb things you’re allotted to do in a year, but I definitely did one of mine yesterday.

So I was out running a couple quick errands, on my way to a small group meeting for church.  I was at PetsMart, and I wanted to hit up the nearby Panera to buy some delicious bread to bring with me to the meeting.  These are in two separate strip malls that are not connected, so you have to go out to another road to go immediately next door.  As I was heading out of the first strip mall, I noticed that the two might be connected.  I drove to what appeared to be a connecting point to discover that it was not a connecting road, but rather a chunk of ground where the concrete was taken out and a 4 or 5 foot dirt hill sloping downward to the neighboring stripmall where clearly a few trucks had gone through.  I did not see any Saturn station wagon tracks, but I figured I had done some minor off-roading in my day and figured I could make it.  I was quite, quite wrong.

As I drove off the edge of the concrete, the frame of my car just beyond the front wheels immediately hit the concrete, preventing any further movement in either direction, and my thought immediately was "I’m such an idiot," because I knew I was screwed at this point.  After a few tries of pushing the car myself and having a couple guys stop to help me push, it was clear I would need professional help.  So I called a tow truck.

Now here’s the thing.  I don’t mind just being an idiot (hell, I’ve pulled it off well for 26 years now), but the worst part of waiting for a tow truck while your car is stuck between two commercial parking lots is the fact that everyone who drives by is made painfully aware of the fact that you’re an idiot.  So I sat there for probably 30 minutes, wrapped in my shame, attracting the goggling eyes of each passerby.  At one moment, there was even a car that slowed down as it passed me by, and when I glanced over, I noticed two high school age girls, who suddenly spotted me still in the car, and slammed on the gas to drive away.

So finally the tow truck showed up and liberated me from the icy grip of the stripmall median, and I was set free with no damage to my car.  And here’s the best part, because of my comprehensive insurance that I recently upgraded to, I didn’t have to pay anything!  So sometimes being an idiot doesn’t hurt quite as bad as it could.

So one dumb thing down for the year, how many more to go?