The Doorbell rings. It’s the tow truck guy.

Me: Hi, how are you doing?

Guy: I’m doing good, but it looks like you got yourself into a bit of a pickle there.

Me, embarrased: Yeah. We had a visitor who parked their van on the other side of the driveway and I was trying to go around it.

Guy: You’re half off the driveway and there’s that tree that’s helping to hold you up.

Me: The snow’s been melting and refroze with the temperature drop.

Guy: Well I’ve been looking for trees to use as pulleys to help get you out, but there aren’t any in the right spot. See, if I pull you down the driveway your front end will slide off the driveway more and the tree you’re on will scrape the entire side of your car. It’s that whole angle thing.

Me: You mean like gravity.

Guy: Yeah, gravity.

Me: I can cut the tree down.

Guy: Yeah but there’s another one next to it. And if I try to get up the driveway to pull you up and away from the tree, there’s a good chance my truck might slip and hit your car.

Me: Hmm.

Guy: Yup, a pickle.

Me: …so what do you think we should do?

Guy: I’ll try coming up the driveway.

Me, nervous now because a scrape along the side of my car is better than a fast-moving tow truck destroying the other side of the car and then flipping it further into the ditch: Uh ok. Is your truck 4-wheel drive?

Guy, as he walks down the driveway to his truck: Nope.

The Girl and I watch as he revs his engine. Smoke pours out of his exhaust. He leans forward over his steering wheel. The truck starts up the driveway…and gets to the top without a problem.

Guy, as he gets out of the truck: Well, now we can do something!

The Girl walks back into the house shaking her head (at me I think). The Guy proceeds to tell me about the different parts of the car that he has to hook the tow line onto in European, Japanese, and Domestic cars and which ones he prefers.

He eventually leaves and I go inside for some whiskey that the Girl has already started on.

Thank you CAA and Rosemont Towing for the excuse to drink a happy ending to the evening.

Saw this on the Internet and thought of Kissaki for some reason:

Dear Tech Support,

Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and noticed a distinct slow down in overall system performance — particularly in the flower and jewelry applications, which operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0 In addition, Husband 1.0 uninstalled many other valuable programs, such as Romance 9.5 and Personal Attention 6.5, and then installed undesirable programs such as NFL 5.0, NBA 3.0. and Golf Clubs 4.1. Conversation 8.0 no longer runs, and Housecleaning 2.6 simply crashes the system. I’ve tried running Nagging 5.3 to fix these problems, but to no avail. What can I do?

Signed,
Desperate

* * *

Dear Desperate:

First keep in mind, Boyfriend 5.0 is an Entertainment Package, while Husband 1.0 is an Operating System. Please enter the command: “http: I Thought You Loved Me.htm” and try to download Tears 6.2, and don’t forget to install the Guilt 3.0 update. If that application works as designed, Husband 1.0 should then automatically run the applications Jewelry 2.0 and Flowers 3.5. But remember, overuse of the above applications can cause Husband 1.0 to default to Grumpy Silence 2.5, Happy Hour 7.0, or Beer 6.1. Beer 6.1 is a very bad program that will download the Snoring Loudly Beta.

Whatever you do, DO NOT install Mother-in-law 1.0 (it runs a virus in the background that will eventually seize control of all your system resources). Also, do not attempt to reinstall the Boyfriend 5.0 program. These are unsupported applications and will crash Husband 1.0. In summary, Husband 1.0 is a great program, but it does have limited memory and cannot learn new applications quickly.

You might consider buying additional software to improve memory and performance. We recommend Hot Food 3.0 and Lingerie 7.7.

Good Luck,
Tech Support

We presented our cha cha routine again last night at a spotlight. We got through it in one piece this time even though we had some minor timing issues. That’s the nature of cha cha though…and in dancing, timing is obviously a big thing.

We’re working on waltz pivots and spiral turns now.

On a related note, it looks like you won’t be doing the Scent of a Woman tango thing in New York City any time soon:

NYC court upholds law that bans patrons from dancing in bars, restaurants.

Have materials improved so much in dentistry since I did my last crown a few years ago that it’s now ok to place a crown margin on the core material?

The Girl took these pictures through the windows facing the back of the house. The Boy and I were out for a walk at the time.