Life & Times #7

Summers between semesters of college, my sisters and I would come home from BYU to work.  We were blessed with a dad who worked at Motorola and who could help us get jobs with the summer intern program.  I got to work as an admin in International Human Resources for three summers.  It was a small group of 4 women and then me doing whatever copying, filing, typing proposals, etc they needed. It was actually interesting to see how the company planned and compensated those employees they sent to work out of the country or who they invited to come to the States.   I couldn't have asked for a better summer job.

(Sitting here typing, I remember when my sister and I went to get our mandatory drug testing before that first summer.  Easy, right?  Just pee in a cup.  Well, I get pee-fright (it's real thing) and could not for the life of me produce anything.  The lady was NOT patient with me and just said to keep drinking water and to try again.   After an hour or so, the nice lady knew I was hiding something but said I would just have to come in a different time.  Resigned to having to go through this stupid ordeal again, we left.  Only we got about 5 minutes from the building before I had to relieve myself of the gallon of water I had just drunk.  I was in so much pain, we had to stop at a gas station during the 10 minute drive home.)

Anyway, one summer day I decided to run home for lunch and grab something to eat.  Our house was only 10 minutes away but this time I was running a little late, so I ran inside, ate something quickly with my mom and ran out to get back.

Only...my car wasn't in the driveway where I left it.  What??  I was sure I had parked right next to the walkway but there was now NO CAR.  I checked the garage just in case I had somehow parked there without remembering it?  No luck.  It hit me, "Someone stole my car!"

I began to walk around in a daze wondering who in the world would steal my car when I noticed two tire tracks at the end of the driveway.  Two tire tracks that led into the grass and down the lawn.  Two tire tracks that led through the backyard and right out into the pond that lay 50 yards beyond!

Apparently in my haste, I had forgotten to pull the emergency brake and apparently there was JUST BARELY enough of an incline to the driveway that the car rolled by itself to edge of the grass where it picked up momentum and launched itself down the hill and into, yep, the pond.

This is where I found it.

My mom and I called my dad who came home from work and called a tow truck.  My parents handled it all very calmly and didn't make me feel too stupid. :)

I had to get back to work so I didn't see the rescue but my parents told me when the tow truck driver pulled up, he said this wasn't the first time he pulled a car out of this pond!  We found out later that earlier that year he had towed out our stake president's car!  His family lived down the road from us and kept a canoe under our deck to use on the water. We were out of town but he had come over to check on the canoe and parked right at the top of our driveway, and before he knew what was happening, his car was coasting down toward the water. Our neighbor saw it happening and called out to his wife, but she didn't believe him because he was hung over from the night before. :)

Anyway when it was all said and done, I was beyond lucky!  The damage could have been much worse.  When the car rolled it actually swerved to miss the gazebo and swerved AGAIN to miss the dock at the edge of the pond!  Plus it hadn't rained in a few weeks so the water was super low.  The car ran into 10 inches of mud instead of the 3-4 feet of water that is usually there.  Our stake president had major water damage and a foot of water/mud to clean out of the inside.  This time the tow truck pulled it out of the pond, hosed it off and drove it back up to the driveway.  There was no damage at all!  Like I said, I was beyond lucky!

My not-to-scale, very rudimentary, very awful depiction of the events.

My dad had sent the Pond Picture to me last year saying it was one of his favorite stories.   I'm so glad.  It could have been a very expensive event for me!  Luckily, luck was on my side.