Early Morning Escapade

Or should I say Escalade? (No, wait... it was a Lincoln Navigator. Never mind!)

But it was Sunday morning. And it was definitely Early. I woke up sometime before five - you know how you jolt out of a deep sleep for no apparent reason? As my eyes started to focus, I noticed a Very Bright Light shining on the bedroom wall. Which was odd, because no lights in the house were on, and there are no streetlights on our tiny slip of a road. I quickly deduced - despite my sleepiness - that it was Something Strange. So I staggered into the study, sans glasses, and peered owlishly out the window. I saw what looked like a car at the top of the neighbor's driveway, sitting there motionless but with its bright lights shining in though the window. I stood there for a minute or two, and decided to step back into the bedroom to get my glasses. As I did so, the lights went out. I went back to the window anyway, and looked again. I didn't *think* I saw anything, so I decided it was someone - very lost - turning around. I had no sooner gotten comfy again in my nice warm bed that... ZOOM... the light was back!

Out of bed I jumped, with glasses in hand this time, and went back to the window. The lights were much closer. Much, MUCH closer. And attached to a vehicle. A Lincoln Navigator, to be precise. A shiny white one, even. In fact, they were... in our yard??!? Not sitting calmly in the driveway, mind you, but sunk to the wheel wells in the muddy abyss that is our front yard.

Now, here's the curious thing. We don't know anyone who drives a Lincoln Navigator. And even if we did, anyone we knew would be kind enough to park it on the concrete, not in the mud atop our sceptic tank. I walked calmly back into the bedroom, and announced loudly "THERE IS SOMEONE DOING DONUTS IN OUR FRONT YARD." Which immediately propelled the husband out of his own pleasant dreams and into the hall where I was standing, still a bit startled at the events unfolding before me. He picked up the phone, about to call the cops. (We live in a quiet area, but there are some unsavory folk not too terribly far away. If these mud doggers were looking for them the police would have been a prudent first call.)

As we watched, a woman got out and sloshed around the vehicle. (Did I mention we'd received almost six inches of rain in the previous 24 hours??) So the philosopher decided to turn on the front lights and open the door.

"Excuse me, WHO ARE YOU? And what are you doing in our yard??!?"

It was obvious she was, erm.... "drunk as a cooterbug"? Yeah, that would be a nice way to put it. She wailed "I can't get my car out of the mud! I was going to cuss out my ex-fiance and I got stuck here! I am SO SORRY. I promise, I'll fix your grass!"

So eventually we invited her in while we waited for her ex-husband and his wife to come pick her up (it's better not to ask, we learned). We made coffee. We listened to her (slightly incoherent) tale of woe. After she left, we got ready for church, still a little dazed and disoriented at the extremely early start to the morning. Before we headed out, the ex-husband was back with a towtruck, and they winched the beast out of the mud. And left a slew of despond where our tidy lawn used to be.

We haven't heard back from her yet, but we have her contact info (and that of her ex, who works for the sheriff's department) and we will call if we don't hear anything by Friday. I suppose we should be glad that she ended up stuck in the mud, unable to drive. She could have driven into the large drainage ditch at the top of the hill, or wrapped around one of the large trees in our yard. Or smashed into the side of our house. Or worse still, she could have caused an accident that resulted in injury or - God forbid - a death.

So the moral of the story, kids, is Don't Drink and Drive. Especially if you feel the need to cuss someone out at 5 am.