How much do you love me?

I've done a lot of stupid things, but what I did last night earns me the Idiot of the Year award.

There's a gravel road (actually more like a trail) near our house that runs between two corn fields. It's part of one of my favorite running routes and looks like this:


I've been running this about once a week because I love watching how the fields change with each season and I love scaring up flocks of birds, grasshoppers and an occasional bunny as I go by (probably from my loud, heavy breathing). The only problem is that I don't know how far it is. You might think it doesn't matter but most runners are a little nutty and we want to know exactly how far we've gone each time we go out.

Well, I was driving home from seeing clients last night and had the "bright" idea of driving around those barricades and up the gravel road and back so I could find out it's distance. You non-idiots probably see the problem with this idea immediately, but I thought it could work. I've seen other vehicles go around those barricades and drive down the road. OK, they were large-ish work trucks and not a Toyota Corolla. Oh, and also? It was about 8:30 pm -- pretty dark, even with the high beams on.

So I start in, cautiously (I'm not THAT nutty), but pretty soon find myself stuck in a lot of mud. I don't panic yet because I'm a seasoned winter driver and I know that you just have to sort of "rock" the car back and forth, find the tiniest bit of traction and you can get out. I guess that only works with snow. I get out and look for something in the trunk to put under the tires to give it traction. Ah! a towel! That will work! Nope.

I finally realize I'm going to have to call George. Ohhhhhh this wasn't going to be good. You see, the car I was driving was his car (yeah, yeah, yeah, it's "our" car, but it's really his car). And if you know George, you know that he is......how does one say.....fastidious. He's understandably upset, but comes to my rescue and gets the car out of the hole. I didn't realize how bad it was until I went back to the scene of the stupidity:


See that concrete barricade right there? The cute little gray Corolla was about 6 inches from it. George only groused a little bit....I expected a lot more, because what I did (or tried to do) was really, really stupid. Later, when I came home from washing his car and filling it up with gas, I apologized again. He said, "Well, sh#t happens, you weren't thinking, and besides, one of the things that made me fall in love with you is your sense of adventure."

For this, and many, many, many other reasons, George is my ONO (One 'N Only).