It was the kind of crisp, Florida winter afternoon that makes you long for apple cider and football. The high blue sky and chilly wind made me feel invincible, like a Yeti cooler. I was ready for the long drive with my family up I-75 back to Gainesville after visiting my in-laws in Bradenton for Christmas.
Gas. We needed some before getting on the highway outside Bradenton. And we needed junky gas station snacks for the three-hour drive. As was our custom on these trips back home, we’d stop at the corner RaceTrac to fuel up and get those gas station snacks, the best kind of snacks there are. What road trip would be complete without them?
We pulled into the busy RaceTrac and wove between cars to find a vacant gas pump, where I dumped $60 of unleaded into our Toyota Sienna minivan. And now (rubbing my hands together), those snacks.
Nothing would satisfy me more than an ice-cold Diet Dr. Pepper, some trail mix (mostly for the M&Ms), and Smartfood cheddar popcorn. I like to shovel food and drink into my maw ceaselessly like a teenager during road trips to keep raccoon alert, so I’d hunt for the largest bags of trail mix and popcorn inside the RaceTrac. Kaleab, my eleven-year-old son, would get an orange Gatorade and a giant bag of Takis Fuego rolled tortilla chips. If you’ve never had these, drink a gallon of the sharpest vinegar you can find, then wash it down with a bucket of table salt and fresh lava. That’s Takis, only Takis are somehow even more potent. Lila, my seventeen-year-old daughter, snacks far more conservatively. It’d be a Diet Coke to pair with the crunchy seaweed crisps she already had in the car. RaceTrac has yet to add seaweed snacks to its otherwise unhealthy inventory, so Lila wisely stocked up before the trip. She thinks ahead like that.
One—and maybe the only—advantage to having a rare progressive and degenerative neuromuscular disease is the blue handicap placard that hangs from my rearview mirror, granting me access to convenient parking spaces right in front of places like the RaceTrac. And there was one such space sandwiched between two other parked cars. So I zipped straight to it from the gas pump.
Feeling a bit sprite from the chilly air, and wanting to make a fast getaway from the gas station after purchasing our snacks, I decided to back into the handicap space, thus facing outward, while the cars to my left and right had parked facing forward, like normal. The nose of my Sienna aligned with the rear of the cars beside mine.
My kids and I purchased our snacks inside, then returned to the van; I to the driver’s seat and my kids to their rear seats.
“Ready?” I asked, starting the car. “Everyone buckled in?”
Kaleab was already tearing open the Takis. His fingers and lips would be red-powder-discolored in seconds. And he’d be breathing with his tongue hanging out.
“Hang on, bud,” I said. “Let’s get on the highway before you dive in. Less chance of a mess.”
He sighed, but put the bag down in his lap with his hand still inside.
I threw the van in drive for that quick getaway when my wife, Maria, sitting in the front passenger seat, announced that she had to use the bathroom. I snarked the obligatory, “Now? Couldn’t you have gone while we were all getting our snacks? We’re ready to go.”
“I didn’t think I needed to go then,” she replied.
“Then? It was less than five minutes ago.”
She lectured me about the size difference between a male and female bladder. To this I had no legitimate defense. I crumbled under the weight of her infallible argument.
“Okay,” I said, smiling. “We’ll wait. Go ahead.” I put the van back in park but left the engine running.
I looked in the review mirror. “Kids, I guess go ahead and munch on your snacks. We’re gonna be here a few minutes.”
I twisted open my Diet Dr. Pepper, shoved a handful of glorious cheesy popcorn down my throat, and guzzled my first gulp of cold soda while gazing softly ahead toward the thirty or so gas pumps out in front of me. I contemplated rolling my window down to let in some of that brisk air. I might have even started humming, “Oh the weather outside is frightful.”
A strange sensation then took hold. Very slowly, the van started … moving backwards? Wait, what’s happening? Why are we moving backwards suddenly? I glanced quickly to my left and right. Yes, the two cars beside me were proving me right: I was somehow beginning to move backwards, straight toward the glass double front doors of the RaceTrac, where people – including women and children – were entering and exiting. I was sure of it. But how? Had I accidentally bumped the shifter and thrown us into reverse? Frantically, I grabbed the shifter and tried to push it back up into park, but it was already securely in park. How is this happening? My mind began to race. Do something fast, or you’re going to roll into the people and doors behind you! You’re going to kill somebody! I jammed both feet onto the brake pedal, but judging from the cars to my left and right, that failed. I was still moving slowly backwards. I tried again with the brakes, this time literally standing up to drive all my weight onto the pedal. Nothing.
I hollered, “Kids, we’re moving backwards! What’s going on?”
I had only a second or two before I’d leave a wake of carnage in front of the RaceTrac. Wait, the emergency brake! Try that! I slammed my left foot onto the emergency brake lever, depressing it with such force that I swear it cursed at me in objection. My right foot was still planted on the brake pedal, nearly boring it through the floorboard. And now I was punching the gearshift with uppercuts to ensure it was in its full and upright park position. It still was, of course. And yet, I was still moving backwards!
“Kids! Kids! I can’t stop the car from moving backwards! We’re going to hit somebody! What is going on? Crap, crap, crap!”
My kids remained silent, wearing confused looks, and holding their snacks steady while this unfortunate drama played out.
I considered diving out of the car, but I didn’t want to leave my poor kids stranded in there alone. I closed my eyes, racking my brain to think of any other way to halt my van’s inexplicable backwards inertia. But I knew no other way. I acquiesced to the terrifying reality that I was going to plow through those glass doors, running over innocent bystanders along the way, their last thoughts being confusion and horror.
I opened my eyes, slumped defeatedly against the steering wheel and imagined the news anchors proclaiming that “A deranged man killed multiple people in an apparent premeditated act of violence at a local RaceTrac gas station today. The man is now in custody.”
Mind you, all of this took place in the span of about three seconds.
But just then a funny thing happened. The car to my left and the car to my right both seemed to veer off to the right, the car to my left passing slowly in front of me. I looked in my rearview mirror and noticed I was actually no closer to those glass doors than I was just a few seconds prior. And then it hit me. I was not moving backwards. I never was. Both of those cars beside me just happened to slowly back out of their respective spaces at exactly the same time and exactly the same glacial speed, creating the illusion that I was moving backwards given I had backed into my parking space. What are the odds? Have you ever taken your car through one of those full-service automated car washes? You know how when those vertical spinning brushes pass beside you it feels like you’re moving forward? Same thing, only the reverse. The illusion, my friends, felt convincingly real.
Relieved, I eased off the brake pedal and turned to face my children. “How are those Takis, Kaleab?”
He crunched on one and spoke through a full mouth. “Good, dad. You okay? Something wrong?”
“I’m fine. I’m fine. Just had a little scare for a second. Bit of an optical illusion. But it’s all good now.” My breathing was returning to normal.
Maria opened her door and climbed back in. “Anything exciting happen while I was gone?”
I threw the car into drive and gently glided out of my parking space. “Nope. Just waited patiently. Nothing exciting. How was the bathroom?”
“It was a gas station bathroom.”
“Ah.”
The relief I felt from not unwittingly killing people was similar to that warm embrace my mother-in-law had given me when we had departed her home. A mix of glee and embarrassment. I regarded the sun and sky, took a long pull from the Diet Dr. Pepper, then uttered a silent prayer of thankfulness. After all, it was Christmas.
—If you enjoyed this story, explore more Only Me! stories on my blog by clicking the button below. Also enjoy The Exploits of Zeus Hall, a series of short stories.