The Good News Is...

I had a day off Monday, so I went to the tower house to put a heater in the basement so the pipes won't freeze this winter (I decided running the furnace there all winter is too costly).

• The good news is, I found a nifty radiator-like heater at Home Depot for $39.
• The bad news is, when I got to the Tower House I saw that the guy who has been (intermittently) cutting up my downed tree still doesn't have the driveway cleared.
• The good news is, I can drive through the front yard and around to the side of the house to park - so I did that, parked, and put in the heater.
• The bad news is, when I got back in the red truck to leave, I got it stuck in the yard. We had had a deluge of rain the last few days which turned the soil under the grass to jello.
• The good news is, I had shingles and carpet scraps to stick under the truck drive tires to gain traction.
• The bad news is, the shingles and carpet scraps didn't do a darn bit of good and encouraged me to keep trying, which dug the tires in deeper.
• The good news is, I have another truck at the Tower House - my old white truck - and some nylon rope which I could use to pull the red truck out of the mud.
• The bad news is, the ropes snapped rather than pulling the red truck free.
• The good news is, I found a couple of very stout tow straps to replace the ropes.
• The bad news is, pulling with the tow straps didn't do a darn bit of good and encouraged me to keep trying, which dug the tires of the white truck into the mud.
• The good news is...well, there isn't any good news at this point.
• The bad news is, I have two stuck trucks, I am soaking wet and splattered with mud, I have TWO STUCK TRUCKS, Lee Ann is at work, and it's getting dark.
• The good news is, I am a AAA member, and have a cell phone, so I called for road service.
• The bad news is, when the wrecker arrived, the driver took one look and said he couldn't get his truck close enough (without getting stuck himself) for his cable to reach either truck - and AAA disallowed the call since being stuck in the middle of your own yard is not a road service situation.
• The good news is, the driver called his friends, who (four of them total) got both trucks unstuck and they only wanted $20 a head for their help.