Wine for Inauspicious Beginnings

I mentioned in my last post that Steve and I have taken a few big trips together, and that they have all turned out pretty terrifically. What I didn't mention is that these trips didn't always get off to such a great start.

For the camping trip we took to Yellowstone, The Tetons, etc. we flew to Sacramento, rented a car, bought a bunch of gear at a local K-Mart, and were on our way. We had rented a compact car through Dollar Rent-a-Car, for some ridiculously low sum, especially since we were renting the car for a month. As some of you may know, at Dollar, the car you sign up for is seldom the car you actually get. Many is the time I have rented a sub-compact car for a great low price, only to wind up driving off their lot in a stretch limo, trying desperately to find street parking for what is possibly the biggest car in the world.

This trip was no exception. We went in expecting a compact, and after waiting around for an hour, we drove away in a mini-van. This actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise, since we had drastically underestimated just how much space all that camping crap would take up, and had we tried to cram both ourselves and all that gear into a compact, we would have wound up trying ditch each other by the side of the road after the first week.

On our first full day of driving said mini-van, we pulled into a gas station to fill up, me in the passenger seat, gigantic road atlas in my lap. Not being sure what side of the car the gas tank was on, I stuck my head out the window to see if it was on my side. As I did so, the window rolled up up up, taking my head with it, until I was was flapping my arms around, almost unable to breathe, gasping "Steve, roll it down, roll it down" desperately looking for the button that would roll the window down.

I felt like one of those dandelions we used to pick from the grass when we were younger, when we would sing "The mommy had a baby and it's head popped off", whereupon we would press our thumbnail under the flower and squeeze until the flower flicked off of the stem. I was desperately hoping that my head was not about to go the way of the dandelion flower.

I naturally assumed that somehow this predicament I found myself in was somehow Steve's doing. I thought he had turned off the car and that some security feature caused the windows to automatically roll up, placing a death grip on anything that might be in their path. Seriously, I think if I had had a hand in there and not my head, I would have lost digits.

The strangulation-by-window in reality only lasted about 2 seconds, as my fingers quickly found the window button and rolled the window down. This is when I discovered that I had actually, inadvertently, rolled my own head up in the window. When I leaned forward to look out the window for the gas tank, the giant atlas in my lap had pressed against the window button, causing it to roll up.

Now, something very primal seems to happen in your body when the throat is squeezed too tightly, and a strange sort of hysteria rose up in me, and the fact that I had just rolled my own head up in a car window made me laugh like a lunatic and then burst into tears. Steve was watching me with a look of concern, I think because he was thinking that it was going to be a very long trip...