Dear Officer:

Hello. I’m the girl who almost ran you over a few weeks ago while you tried to save my car from rolling over a curb and down an embankment. Just wanted to say sorry…

It was a nice, sunny, very warm day. I had just finished up an appointment and was in my car ready to drive home. I started it up, put it in reverse, and carefully backed out of my parking space. When I shifted the car back into drive, there was a funny grinding noise. I let up on the brake and put a little pressure on the gas.

To my surprise the car went backwards, not forwards as I had expected. I pushed down on the brake again, changed the gear shift position back to reverse and then to drive again. This was when I noticed that the shift stick was moving with too much ease and the needle on my dashboard was NOT moving.

Oh noes! My car was stuck in reverse and my gear shift was broken!

I took a deep breath and decided I’d just back into another spot and turn off the ignition then call someone for help. I slowly backed my car around the corner of the building as far as I could go to a less crowded area of the parking lot. I backed right up into another parking spot with the rear of my car facing the building I’d just left, with the front of my car facing another row of empty parking spots in front of me. Beyond the curb to those spots was a fairly large cliff ditch and wooded area.

Did I mention that this part of the parking lot sloped quite a bit? Right towards that fairly large cliff of death ditch?

No problem. I would follow through with my plan: turn the car ignition off and call someone to come help me out.

I wasn’t sure if I should turn the car off (can you do that while in reverse without something blowing up?) while stuck in reverse. I decided to call my dad and tell him what was happening. He told me to put on my emergency brake first, and then turn off the car.

I did and to my horror, the foot brake pushed up and my car pitched FORWARD. I threw off the emergency brake (let’s go ahead and rename it the “useless brake” for now) and panicked. I used both feet to push the foot brake down as hard as I could. “Uh, dad that didn’t work!”

We decided to try to turn off the car and THEN put on the emergency brake. I turned off the ignition (but couldn’t get the keys out since my car was still stuck in reverse). Then, I pulled up the emergency brake. Same thing happened: the car started to roll forward.

By now I was now halfway out of my parking spot and heading towards that nice little wooded area. With the cl, er, ditch.

Oh, and my phone battery was beeping at me. I gave my dad the address where I was (in case the car rolled over the cliff of death ditch and they needed to recover my body) and hung up. I only had about a minute or two before the phone battery died.  Who do you call when you really need some help?

Why, call 911 of course!

“Raleigh 911 what is your emergency?”

“Hello. I am at blah blah address and my car is stuck in reverse in the parking lot and I can’t stop it. And I’m by a ditch.”

D’oh! That’s not what I wanted to say but it worked.

“Ma’am, have you put the car into drive?“

“That won’t work. Nothing is working.”  “Ma’am, have you asked someone to jump your battery?”

I explained my situation again, in a more urgent tone. “No! I mean that my car is stuck in reverse, it won’t switch gears. It won’t start. And I keep rolling toward a ditch and I’m afraid the car will go over the curb and wreck.” (Sweet Jesus I’m going to die!!!)

I asked her if she could please send help since I was trying not to hit any other vehicles. Now that I was a bona fide hazard, she said she’d send help.

I sat in my car waiting. And waiting.

And then I started to cry. I was pretty frustrated and felt really dumb just sitting in a turned off vehicle, legs straight out pressing on the brake as hard as possible, in the heat, cell phone dead. You know the kind of crying that makes your face look like you were swatted with poison ivy: all red and blotchy? Yeah, that was me.

“Take a deep breath and calm down” I told myself. After all, it’s probably nothing big and it could be worse. I could have the kids with me. This could have happened in traffic. Or both.

I wondered if I should just let the car roll forward slowly and then “hit” the curb. Then I could escape this death trap.

However, the curb was MAYBE 3 inches high, and beyond the curb was a drop. This went through my mind: car roll downhill.  Car go over curb. Car crash in ditch.

*whimper*

And that is when he showed up. Hello Officer Hunka-Hunka from Raleigh PD!!!

To be continued!!!