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July 13, 2023
Ok, so there was that time when I drove my car into a creek...
Ten minutes into a first date...
It was in the Fall of 1983, and I had recently been dumped by my girlfriend.
I was taking it pretty hard and was moping about and feeling sorry for myself.
Woe Is Me - was my daily theme.
Then, one day at work one of my co-workers tried to snap me out of my funk and suggested that I buy tickets to an upcoming event since that would force me to find a date for the event.
That seemed like a good idea, so I bought tickets for a Tom Chapin concert two weeks away at the Barns of Wolf Trap - a local venue that hosted a wide range of performers.
Since the concert was a fortnight into the future, I was pretty confident that I would be able to find a date and I casually slipped the opportunity into just about every conversation I had with any likely candidate.
Unfortunately, most of the people I asked already had plans for that day and as the date of the concert approached, I started to worry I might not be able to find someone to go with me.
To make matters worse, I had already told everyone at work about my plans and every day at the office anyone I interacted with asked if I had been able to find a date.
A couple of days before the concert I took a long shot and reached out to a someone that I had recently met at a party that my brother had invited me to attend a few months back.
She was very nice and actually remembered me from the party.
She said she would be happy to go to the concert with me and asked when it was.
I said it was on Friday - two days from then - and to my surprise - after a long pause - she actually agreed to go with me.
So, the next day at work I made sure to tell everyone that I had indeed secured a date for the concert.
Since my date worked about 45 minutes away - in the wrong direction - we agreed that she would drive to my office building and that I would drive from there to the concert.
At the time, the building we worked in - some called it "The Toilet Bowl Building" because of its design - had a bar called TGI Fridays located on the ground floor so we agreed to meet there at 7PM.
TGI Fridays was a popular Friday night gathering spot for my co-workers so I had quite a crowd in attendance waiting to see if my date would actually show up.
There were still a few skeptics in the crowd.
As the time of her expected arrival approached and then passed, my co-workers began to suggest that she was not real and that I had made the whole thing up.
Well, to their surprise she did actually show up - a few minutes late due to traffic - and she was very nice, funny and friendly.
After brief introductions to the work crew, we left for the concert with a big smile on my face.
At the time, I was driving a 1976 BMW 2002 that was painted one of the original colors - bright orange.
Since we were running late, I decided to take a back road that I thought would be a short cut to get to the concert.
In retrospect, this was a mistake.
You see, the road we were traveling on - Old Courthouse Road - was a road I had never been on before.
So, when we got to a bend in the road where it took a sharp turn to the left - I kept going straight.
At the time, I noted that the second worst sound a person can hear while driving a car is the screeching sound of brakes trying to stop the car before it hits something.
What I quickly learned was that there was a sound that was worse - that was the sound after the screeching stopped and the car started to fly through the air.
The silence between the time the car left the roadway and the time it landed in the creek seemed to last forever.
But then there was brown water crashing over the windshield and the very unsettling gurgling sound as water began to seep through the doors and into the car interior.
Once I realized we had "successfully" completed a water landing I turned to my date and asked if she was okay.
She said she was fine so I told her to sit there - while the water was rising - and that I would come around to open her door.
Well, opening a car door with hundreds of gallons of water pressing against it is harder that you would think but once I got the door open the water rushed in and equalized the pressure.
I walked around the front of the car - past the submerged but still shining headlights - and opened my date's door and helped her up the bank of the creek to the road.
Keep in mind, this was before everyone had cell phones so there we were standing on the side of the road looking at my car in the creek and wondering what to do next.
Then all of a sudden as if we were in a movie - a Taxi appeared from the darkness.
It had dropped someone off in the adjacent neighborhood and was available.
I flagged it down and explained that we had a bit of car trouble and asked if he could take us to the nearest service station - which was back up the road, directly across the street from my office building.
The taxi driver obliged and dropped us off at the service station.
When I walked in to ask if they might have tow truck available because I had a car that had gone off the road - the guy took one look at my still dripping lower half and said - "So, you put it into the creek, huh?".
I acknowledged this fact and he explained that they had plenty of experience retrieving cars from that very spot.
He called his tow truck operator and he drove my date and I back down to creek.
By the time we got there, a small crowd had gathered, and a police officer was on the scene.
When we got out of the car the crowd was actually berating the police officer and telling him that they needed to do something about the curve because too many people were driving into the creek.
I guess the police officer felt bad for me because he took my information and then said that since the tow truck was there, we were in good hands, and he left.
No ticket. No warning. Nothing.
The tow truck guy walked down the bank to inspect the car and when he walked around the still shining headlights he reached down and pulled up one of several yellow and black warning signs that were supposed to be on the side of the road to warn drivers that there was a sharp turn.
Apparently, all of these signs had been knocked into the creek during previous incidents which is why there were none there when I approached the turn.
When he got to the driver's side door, he tried to open it - to put the car in neutral - it would not open.
It was locked.
He looked up to me and asked me if I had the keys.
I did not remember removing them, but he asked me to look in my pockets.
Sure enough they were there and apparently I had locked the car before climbing up the creek bank.
He asked me to toss him the keys, so I did.
He took a long look at them and then with a wry smile asked - "What, did you think - someone was going to come by and drive your car out of the creek?"
Anyway, it took about 45 minutes to get the car connected to the tow truck and pulled out of the creek up to the roadway.
From there, we returned to the gas station where I thought we would have to leave the car until the next day.
The tow truck driver had other thoughts and while the car was still hanging off the back of the two truck asked me to get in and see if it would start.
I thought he was crazy but since he had been so understanding and helpful - and had pulled multiple other cars from the creek - I obliged.
On the first attempt I was surprised that the engine actually responded to the turn of the key and tried to fire up.
He told me to wait a few minutes and then try again.
On the second attempt, after pumping the gas pedal, to my great surprise the engine actually fired up and a giant stream of water flew out of the exhaust pipe.
He lowered the car to the ground and after I paid the bill for towing, I turned to my date and apologized again for all that had happened and expected her to say she was going home in her car that was parked across the street back at the office.
To my surprise she said she was still up for going out and said she would be happy to drive this time.
So, I got into my BMW - which still had gallons of water sloshing around on the floorboards - and she followed me back to my townhouse.
After changing into dry clothes, we got into her car - she insisted on driving - and went out for Pizza and actually had a great time.
I think we both appreciated how lucky we had been to be uninjured - and to be able to look back on a first date that neither of us would ever forget.
I learned a number of lessons from that experience, but probably the most important ones were to - Slow Down, Count Your Blessings and Enjoy the Moment...
