My dear friend Mike B decided to take me out to “fancy” dinner for my birthday coming up. Since Brookings, SD’s only fine dining options were the Ram Pub and King’s Wok, Mike wanted to show me a place that actually had a corkscrew for the bottles. I drove my burgundy’86 Oldsmobile Regency Brougham. We sang at the top of our lungs songs that neither of us knew the other one knew and the like so it was very bonding. When we got to Minerva’s it had just started to sprinkle rain outside. We paid no mind. My wipers were currently not working and this sunny downpour would surely be done when we had dinner. It wasn’t even after another bottle of wine. Well, I made due and hung out the window furiously squeegee-ing with one I had in my car. Bad enough I have always gotten confused and lost by the city planning of Sioux Falls so I was doing my best with no visibility, being rained on, and Mike’s irratic directions down one way streets and such. We ended up at the first bar he wanted to go to. Well, I don’t know Sioux Falls much less anyone besides Mike. He was the social butterfly of the evening, however. I started drinking water. Figured I’d watch him have fun on my birthday for a couple hours before I headed the 45 minute drive up I 29 to be back with my boyfriend. Well, while I sat alone with water and watched Mike have the time of his life I started figuring I’d jet pretty soon. When I told him this he was in party mode and ready to say good bye and stay at his friend Caitlin’s. Then, like party mode often does, his plan changed and he finally did not want to leave me alone on my birthday. We got outside of the club and what had been sprinkles early on, then turned to downpour with makeshift squeegee windshield wiper, (my wipers in my 86 Olds Ninety Eight Regency went out so when it rained I had to hang out the window and clear the windshield with a little plastic window squeegee I had) had now become the craziest snowstorm while we were in the club. I debated sleeping at my boyfriend’s parents’ since they lived in Sioux Falls. But, I didn’t want to trouble them so late, I wasn’t drunk, but had drank earlier, and I’ve driven through worse snow storms and it’s a straight 45 minute drive up to Brookings. We stopped at a gas station and while I pumped, Mike hilariously stumbled out of the store with every conceivable convenience from the convenience store. Jerky, twelve packs of TAB, cheese, and a carton of cigarettes. Oh, and lots of gummy candy.
We set out. Immediately it became apparent that the interstate was very icy. A usual 75 MPH was now reduced to 50 by me. Not a headlight in sight. On the interstate. That is pretty unheard of. All of a sudden the car spun in 3 360’s. The road was about an inch thick of ice. I got the steed back in control and took it all the way down to 30 MPH. We got a little further and spun even worse this time but I got it back in control. Now, we were about halfway home. I figured if we inched even super slow and it took forever we could make it. So I tried that. We veered right off of the road into a ditch about 20 ft down. There was no getting out of this one. We were completely stuck in the middle of the country in a ditch after a freak snowstorm that made the interstate an ice terror. Well, I turned to Mike and said, “We’ll stay in here. I have emergency blankets in the trunk. It’ll be fun. You’ve got all that food. We can still keep the heat on once in a while. Someone will find us. We’ll be fine.” I had barely gotten the words out and he was already mind made up. “We have to find a farm house,” slurred Mike. “No. They always say when you’re lost or whatever to stay where you are. It’s our best bet. We’re safe here,” I said. But he had already gotten out of my car and was walking in the snow towards a light in the distance. Some old street light probably on some farm land miles away. “We’ll go to that light.” He started stumbling through this field. Due to drinking and muddy snowy uneven farm ground it was treacherous in our fancy attire. Especially since I was wearing a midriff bearing top, a light velvet coat and dress boots. As Mike was about 50 yards from the car the beacon of hope directing us to his described Utopian farm house that was better than a carton of cigs, jerky, and a heated 1986 plush Oldsmobile just went out. Probably motion detector or on a timer or the family turned it off. Whatever the case now we were in an even colder darker field. “We have to go to the other side of the road.” Okay, the car was stuck in a 20 ft ditch remember? So that means we were heading back west towards the car but very south of it. AND if we followed Mike’s plan we would have to climb up that 20ft slope then cross four lanes of northbound icy interstate and another four lanes of icy southbound interstate then hope to see a farmhouse. Like the fucking Nativity story for f’s sake. Where we had ended up in this field before we could climb the ditch turned into a cattle field. The huge livestock were very curious. One of them did not want us there and started chasing us. I had to jump into a waist deep shit mud water drainage ditch to escape the cow. Now I was sopping wet muddy and frozen. Oh, and had to climb over two barbed wire fences past the drainage. So was and did Mike but that quick little fucker was already halfway up the hill to our first set of icy road lanes. I caught up to him and was still pleading for him to change his mind and go back to the car. He was delirious and had to continue on his fool’s quest and I couldn’t abandon him. We finally got to the first four lanes of interstate. Mike collapsed to his knees in the middle of the interstate that was so slippery I was shuffling in fancy boots across. “I can’t go on!” he dramatically declared. I could not believe this fucking situation. I wanted to leave his ass but he was making me follow him practically. I would rather be anywhere else. Then it hit me. I was being a pussy. My mind went right to the Holocaust and concentration camps for some fucking reason and I thought, “You know, if someone stuck in the horror of a concentration camp suddenly found themselves free but in this situation they’d fucking plow through.” The Holocaust gave me the wherewithal to plow through myself and see this shit out. So I picked Mike up and said, “Yes you fucking can. Now get the fuck up and find me a farmhouse.” He mustered up enough strength to get to the next stretch of southbound lanes. Again, he collapsed and let out dramatic cries of not being able to go on. Again, I told him to get the fuck up and even said something about the Holocaust. He had no idea what the f I was talking about. Then I spotted it: a farmhouse! All we had to do was go down another twenty foot ditch and cross a field and go past a barn to an actual farmhouse. Got past the ditch and found ourselves faced with a six foot high wooden fence keeping in more cows. Mike said he’d try to get over first. I helped hold and push him to the top of the fence. Instead of crawling over Mike stood straight up on the fence. He started falling straight back. I caught him and with some fucking adreneline from somewhere I didn’t let him fall and I lauched him over. No idea how I did it. Then I fairly easily climbed the fence. Now, more cows. These ones were nicer. The house was right there but Mike started heading towards the barn. “We’ll sleep out here.” “Are you fucking kidding me?! There is a house RIGHT FUCKING THERE. We can wake them up and call for help. I’m not sleeping in a barn. Sopping wet. Freezing cold? Sleep in a barn?! Sleep in a barn…” I responded as I started to slalom through the cows to the house. There was a dog on the porch. Oh fuck. Was it going to bark and bite? That’d be my luck after all. Nope. Just a deaf old farm dog sleeping out in the snow. True old country farm dog. Now I was leading. Mike followed me up the porch. I knocked really loud. Hard as I could. Mike started yelling, “Help! Help Help!!” Then he took the lead much to my dismay. Thought I had him wrangled but I was wrong. He reached for the knob and it was unlocked. True old country farmhouse. Okay, so we were now breaking and entering. I turned on a light and found a phone and dialed my boyfriend Matt first then made a three way call with 911. While talking to the deputy I found out that the roads had all been closed due to the weather emergency but we didn’t get the message cause we were in the bars. I found a piece of mail and gave them the address. I noticed a lot of children’s shoes by the door. It was a family. Just as I noticed that, Mike had stripped down all his clothes down to his black bikini briefs and was running down the hall freaking as I was talking to the deputy and heard a creak down the steps and saw a shadow slowly walk down. Again, since everything was in true old country fashion I was expecting a shot gun. After all, Mike a very obvious homosexual was stripped down to his bikini briefs yelling help and probably looked like a flaming Donnie Wahlberg at the beginning of Sixth Sense. In South Dakota, to a farmer defending his home and coming across a gay man could mean real trouble. Specially when he’s darn near nakey. “I’m on the phone with 911. We got in a car accident. We’re nice. We’re not going to hurt or steal or anything,” I said over Mike’s wailing. It turned out to be a shotgun-less woman. She was shocked but so f’ing calm. Old country woman. Hung up the phone. Deputy and my boyfriend were on the way. Got to chatting with the farm lady. She mentioned that I could throw my clothes in the dryer. I forgot I was soaked to the bone. She gave us some oddly fitting farm gear and made coffee. She happened to be a nursing teacher at our college South Dakota State University.
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