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Help! I’m stuck

By RICK RYCKELEY
Contributing Writer

Last week I needed help. Now I know what some of you are thinking, and believe me, The Wife and The Boy will agree wholeheartedly with you. But I really needed help. You see, somehow, yours truly had forgotten that it had rained all last week, so I pulled my truck off the road to clean up a yard, and you guessed it, got stuck.

Believe it or not, us men folk, well, we don’t like to admit when we do something wrong. That’s why we have kids, so we can have someone to blame stuff on. That, and to have someone to help us search for the stuff we have somehow misplaced, like my truck keys for the third time this week. But that’s another story.

Us men folk don’t like to ask anyone for help either. It will of course be the last thing we do, because to call for help you have to first admit ya did something wrong. But, unfortunately, about the time I figured I was hopelessly stuck, it started to rain again. Soon, I knew I either had to break down and call one of my friends for help or become a permanent fixture in the front lawn of the neighbor’s house.

Men are also best at stating the obvious. Just ask any one of the many that stopped by and offered to help out one of their fellow Neanderthals in need. They each rolled down the window and said the same thing, “Hey, you got stuck?” I told them all the same thing; I wasn’t stuck, just waiting on a friend to come get me. They each grunted a grunt of understanding and shook their heads as they left me alone, not wanting to add to my embarrassment.

To get unstuck, I tried to rock the truck back and forth in first gear. Nope, didn’t work. Then I jammed wood under the back tires. Nope, didn’t work. The wheels just spun on the wet muddy wood. Then I scooped up gravel out of the driveway and dumped it under the back wheels. That didn’t work either, but the gravel that flung out from under the tires did scare off a really mean looking stray dog, and a couple of cats. 

After an hour (and what seemed like three inches of additional rain), I decided to call the one person I could count on for help (other than The Wife, who was out of town), so the call went out to Best Friend Mitch. Boy, was that a mistake.

After the ensuing laughter, my buddy asked the one question I knew he would ask: “So you forgot that it rained for the last week?” Then he added, “I’m working at the fire department. What do you want me to do? Bring the fire truck over and pull you out?”

Guess not. When I hung up the phone he was still laughing and talking about sending someone over to take pictures of me being stuck in the mud for his scrapbook. I can always count on my buddy Mitch for help. That’s okay; won’t be long before he’ll do something stupid again and it’ll be my turn to laugh at him.  And take pictures for my scrapbook. What are best friends for if we can’t pick on each other? Besides, I had another friend I could call and he had a four-wheel-drive pickup. Even though it was a Chevrolet, I guessed it would still get me unstuck.

The rain started to come down in buckets as I called his cell phone. He was busy watching his son’s baseball game but there was a rain delay. He’d be happy to give me a tow. Four more Neanderthals, two dogs, and one really mean squirrel later, my rescuer finally arrived. The first thing he did was jump out of his pickup truck and snap a couple of pictures. Seems Best Friend Mitch told him to make sure he got my predicament on film.

After being towed out, I thanked my rescuer and offered to buy him lunch the next day at my favorite barbeque restaurant. He accepted and drove back to his son’s baseball game. You gotta like rain delays; as it turned out, he didn’t miss a pitch.

That evening I had to get a truck part to replace one that had somehow got broken in the mud, so off to the local auto parts store I went. All the guys at the store were busy with other customers so I got stuck with the only girl in the store. She smiled politely and asked, “Can I help you?”

“Great,” I thought, “a girl at an auto parts store. I’m sure she knows what she’s doing.” To my surprise, she was very knowledgeable and helped me get my part quickly. Even a Neanderthal like me can admit when he’s wrong, so when I checked out I asked her where the manager was. I wanted to tell him how good of an employee she was. The sales lady just looked up at me, smiled politely and said, “I am the manager.”  Then she walked off.

With knuckles dragging and tail tucked, this Neanderthal lumbered backed to his muddy truck. The manager of an auto parts store a lady; go figure. Next thing ya know, there’ll be a woman running for president and winning. Naw. That’ll never happen.