Something Squirrelly this Way Comes

It's a gorgeous day. Bright, sunny skies. Fluffy clouds. Gentle Breeze. Excellent weather to spend waiting in the van for ...assistance. Let me give a recap:

Minion "Are we done out here?"
Me, "Yep. We can go back to the office now."
Minion, "Okay, how do you turn the van around?"
Me, "I usually drive it up the hill to the old construction area and turn around there. The van doesn't have the best traction and I don't want to get stuck."
Minion, looks around, "I think I can turn it around here."
Me, "Oh okay." I look around. "It's dry, so we shouldn't get stuck in the mud."
Beep beep beep beep beep (van backing up sounds) ka-thunk
Me, "Oh crap!!"
Minion, "What?"
Me, "Let me get out and check something." I get out. "Turn off the engine!!"
Minion, "What?"
Me, back at the passenger door, "Turn off the engine, the exhaust pipe is covered in grass & weeds."

Minion & I spend some time looking at the van. Yep, it's stuck. There's a nice culvert/ditch which is holding both rear tires hostage.

I clear the exhaust pipe, she gets back in to try to pull forward as I push the van from the back. It moves a bit. We reverse positions. The van moves about the same amount, but I give it some more gas & am rewarded by lots of white smoke. Man does burning rubber really stink. At least I didn't start a fire.

We finally give up and call for help. Third person we try is at his desk. After he finishes chuckling, he comes out to help. Since it was lunch time, he picked us up and dropped us off at our office and then arranged for the van to be towed.

He said nobody would ever believe that we got the van stuck when it's so dry out. Said he wouldn't tell anyone and said we should just tell folks that the van was at the shop for routine maintenance. Great guy.

Unfortunately, two other employees were doing their rounds and came upon us. I'm not sure they'll keep the incident under wraps. Ah well. It *is* funny. I know we were laughing like loons. It'll be interesting to see how long it takes for the whole facility to find out.

At least it was a lovely day to back into a ditch.