Back in High School when hair was big and bold and I was by all accounts, a size seven, I drove a Ford LTD. It was not an amazing car, but it was mine. It was a pimp ride with its dark grey vinyl roof and metallic silver paint. It had dark grey pinstripes down the sides and white wall tires. For the time it was boxie, a 1978 model.
It had an issue with the radiator and sometimes, I’d have to pull over, cut the water hose, reattach it and fill the radiator with the water my dad made me keep in the trunk. My dad taught me to do this, and I focused on his direction. What he didn’t tell me, would be my downfall.
On one such time, I was out driving home from the Great Salt Lake when my Ford LTD broke down. You can only cut a radiator hose so many times before eventually, it is no longer long enough to connect back to the radiator. On this day, the cut I made on the hose, was just such a cut.
It was long before cell phones–this is not to say they were not around, but who seriously could afford one in 1980-something? Without a phone and no payphone in sight, I had to head out to get help.I had two options, climb a fence, that resembled the one behind the batter at a Major League Baseball game, or walks all the way back, along the road I drove here on, to a neighborhood.
I elected to climb a fence. It was a logical choice. On the other side of the fence, there was a small hill to climb and then I would be between the perimeter road and the freeway.
I climbed up the chain-linked fence like a rock star. Seriously, I felt like if climbing chain link fences was an Olympic event, I was ready. I flipped over the fence to head down the other side to flag someone down.
This is when trouble started.
While I was flipping over the top of the fence, my shirt twisted, along with my bra, and both ended up behind me and pinning me to the fence.
There I was, plastered on the top of the fence like a crucified child, my bare chest exposed directly to on-coming traffic!
It was like there was a billboard beneath me in neon that read “Honk if you see me”! with blinking arrows pointing to me. There were plenty of honks before two nice, though gawking, guys stopped to help me.
It is a perspective, I hope never again to find myself.