Family, Kids, Nature, Weather

Stuck

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My company closed early today so I got home about 2. I barreled up the snowy driveway to discover that YA wasn’t home.  When I called her, she said she was at her boyfriend’s house. I told her she shouldn’t wait too long to come home as the roads were terrible.  She said “his house is only 5 minutes from ours”.  Well, there’s no arguing with THAT, is there?

Fast forward 2½ hours and the phone rings. It’s YA saying she’s stuck at the bottom of the driveway and asking what to do.  I told her to get a shovel, clear out all around the tires and up the driveway a bit.  Despite thinking it was her bed and she should lie in it, it didn’t take long before I coated up and went out to help.  At about that time our neighbor came and helped as well.  YA didn’t really know how to rock the car so I took over, but to no avail.

Neighbor and I decided I should back out onto the street, go around the block and approach the driveway from the north so I could get up some speed. Of course in the crush of traffic, this maneuver took almost 20 minutes, but it did the trick.

When we got back in the house I said “you know I will never be able to resist saying I told you so?” She kinda grinned and said “I know.”

Anybody gotten to say “I told you so” lately in your life?

29 thoughts on “Stuck”

  1. I always want to support TB by responding to the daily question. This one, however, defeats me. There is nothing wrong with the question, but it is such a mismatch for my personal values and beliefs that it defies my ability to express my thoughts in a few sentences. It would be relatively easy to write a book about my difficulties with this question. Just not a few short sentences!

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  2. In our family, we say “I told you yesterday that. . . . “, a phrase coined by Daughter when she was little and was exasperated with us for some reason.

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  3. It’s pretty easy for me to avoid saying I Told You So except in instances that aren’t that important. Such as if I told someone that the local library closes at 5:00 on a certain day and they go there at 6:30 expecting it to be open. I might say I Told You So then.

    But the reason it’s fairly easy for me to avoid saying I Told You So is I try very hard to not Tell You in the first place. I’ve realized that 1) nobody wants t hear it in the first place and 2) the persons that I might Tell in the first place are likely to yell at me for saying anything. So best to not say anything at all.

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    1. Chris, this could be one of those funny, perverse things we find in human nature. People I hang out with don’t tell each other what to do and would never be so rude as to point to someone failing to act appropriately on their wisdom. But in other relationships people might often tell each other what to do and then find it funny when the advice either fails or is ignored. I take it from Sherrilee’s article that she is generous with advice to her daughter and that has become a joke between them. Cool.

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      1. Advice when asked. Sometimes when not asked. But when I got the obnoxious (any of you who have had teenagers can imagine the impatience in the voice) “I’m only 5 minutes away” during a major snowstorm, that is what led me to the “I told you so”.

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        1. While I don’t like to actually say “I told you so”, I am not always above saying “I might have mentioned that” when it is apt.

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  5. Is saying “We talked about that” the same as ‘I told you so’? Maybe it’s more MN passive aggressive.

    The way to get ahead of it is to point out “Once again, you were right and I was less right.” We use that one often. But it has to be in the right moment; In the heat of the moment doesn’t usually work.

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  7. Today’s discussion reminds me of a human relations moment from my past involving advice not asked for. In December of 1986 I bought a 4WD SUV in time to use it on a pheasant hunting trip in Iowa.

    My partner, Hugh, was a guy I had never hunted with. Hugh is a person with excellent opinions. Just ask him! Or, you don’t need to, since he is generous about sharing.

    I’d driven down a muddy road with really steep sides. The mud on top was frozen when I drove in, but hour later it melted to three inches of clay-like goo. Below the goo was frozen ice. I put my sparkling new car in 4WD and cautiously tried to drive out. The car went into giddy circles, coming within inches of the left and the right banks. I stopped and tried again. The car skated drunkenly all over the road, with those terrifying sheer walls almost claiming us.

    Hugh was screaming instructions, repeatedly ordering me to “floor it!” He couldn’t believe how inept I was. Already panicky because of the road, I thought I was about to crash my new SUV. I finally lost it. Trembling with rage, I roared, “Dammit, Hugh! Do you think you can do better?” “Hell yes!” said Hugh. “I couldn’t do worse!”

    I sat in the passenger seat, arms folded, a fixed grin on my face. When Hugh let out the clutch we went skidding toward the right edge. He corrected. The SUV did a 360. He stopped, then started. We took another trip to the left edge of the road. I was happier than I could remember being. Either we were going to get off that terrible road, or Hugh was going to crash my car. I was ready for either. I just couldn’t stand any more screaming advice.

    The Isuzu slithered left and right, nearly falling off the road several times, until it slid to a stop on the main road where we had good gravel. We sat there in perfect silence for several minutes. Finally Hugh said, “Oh my gawd! I’m a whole lot more humble than I was minutes ago.”

    I kept my distance from Hugh after that. When we met some fifteen years later, I asked, “Hugh, do you remember that time we almost fell off that frozen, greasy road down near Lamoni?”

    “I sure do!” said Hugh. “As I remember, you weren’t able to drive a four-wheel drive so you asked me to take over.”

    “That’s it, Hugh! I knew you’d remember!”

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  9. I can’t think of any I Told You So s recently, but this is tangential to the topic, I suppose: In folk dance we teachers sometimes use the phrase “the OTHER left foot”, rather than keep repeating what hasn’t yet registered. And I remember my mom would say “I thought I told you to…”

    Still thinking…

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  10. I’m sure there are countless instances of me or Husband telling each other the equivalent of “I Told You So”… but I can’t think of a specific one. I have a memory of my saying to someone that kind of sing-song “Oh- Kay-ay” (“It’s your funeral”). Must’ve been my sister – you can’t say that to just anyone.

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