Beach Bummer

Archival post (originally posted by Steve on 4/21/2003):

Allow me to relay my weekend to you. On Saturday I went to the beach. Beautiful day and all that, water was warm, and there was free entertainment. Permit me to continue.

As I'm exiting the water for the first time and walking back towards my vehicle, I notice a bright blue Dodge Ram 1500 parked much farther (not further, as further relates to degree and farther to distance) than I had up on the beach. As a matter of fact, this inspiring young chap had, after much consideration and due process I sure, parked his truck as close to the dunes as possible. For those of you who don't live in Florida, I will briefly explain why this would summarily fall into the "bad idea" category. You see, the closer you get to the dunes, the softer the sand gets, until the point where in the worst spots when you walk on it your feet sink in to the middle of your calf.

To boot, this veritable Einstein had manageed to park on top of a huge log.

It gets better.

Needless to say when our little genius went to back his truck up, he started sinking quite quickly. It got deeper, and deeper, and eventually he realized he was only worsening things, so he quit. Along comes truck #2, a very nice black Durango, who (playing the role of the good Samaritan) offers to pull truck #1 out. The attach a rope between the two, and proceed to sink truck #1 all the way down to the axle in the back, with the front of the truck resting comfortably on the log. Now I'm starting to chuckle.

Truck #3 arrives, a black Ford F150 if you're interested, and out pops a mouthy little southerner who is certain he can solve this problem singlehandedly. With some shovels (I'm not sure where they came from) the guys eventually dig out the log (which turned out to be a fallen palm tree) from the front of the truck, and the little redneck hops in and, to my completely amazment, actually gets truck #1 out of the pit it was in rather quickly. With what looked like ease and grace, he rocked it back, then forth only once time, and out the truck came, as if coaxed by some imaginary figure. The southerner, quite pleased with himself, takes off in truck #3.

Backtrack a little. While the guys were attempting to move the tree from beneath truck #1, they notice a plethora of smoke billowing out from under the hood of truck #2. It seems that the Durango was none too keen about being used to try to pull a stuck Dodge Ram out, and then sitting in the hot sun with the engine idling. Now the thing won't start.

The owner of the now defunct truck #2 comes over to ask me if I had any jumper cable. This poor sap was clearly in denial, hoping that the smoke had been in his imagination or something, I'm not quite sure. But he continues his quest for the cables, hoping against hope that it is just a dead battery. Enter truck #4, a small, beat-up Ford Ranger, who delivers the much sought-after cables, but being in my mind the smartest guy of the group decides not to drive his truck into the quicksand of death. No problem, we've still got our original idiot here. He hops in truck #1, and drives it over to face truck #2 to give it a jump with the cables from truck #4. At this point, I'm just waiting for truck #1 to get stuck again, as this would certainly make my day.

After letting the battery charge for a while, they try to start truck #2 up, and it just makes a loud *click*. Shocker. So truck #4 exits with cables in hand. Owner of truck #2 decides he wants to get someone to pull him to a mechanic, but truck #1 is out because he snapped something underneath the front on that palm tree, and consequently the truck isn't running so great. What to do? You guessed it.

Truck #5 was a white Z71. After hooking the rope between the stationary truck #2 and our new friend truck #5, they begin the useless spinning of tires. Well, I guess I shouldn't say useless, as they did manage to get truck #5 stuck too.

At this point, I'm just flat-out staring, mouth slightly open, head cocked quizzically sideways like a dog who hears a high-pitched noise.

They remove the rope between truck #5 and truck #2, and place it between truck #5, and our origial badboy in truck #1 and get truck #5 out, who gets the heck out of dodge. Finally, truck #1 gives the owner of truck #2 a ride somewhere, leaving me with no more entertainment. That's ok, the whole ordeal lasted over 2 hours.