I’ve been stuck in the snow probably a dozen times in my life. I’d say more than half of those times were the result of me But the most embarrassing? That’s easy. My sister is a couple of years younger than I am, which means there were a couple of years where I had my license and she didn’t. So, obviously, I ended up driving her to and from school. On one particularly snowy Northern Michigan day I volunteered to shuttle her and one of her friends, a girl I was pretty eager to impress, home in my grey Dodge Dynasty. And what’s more impressive than initiating a big slide with the pedal-operated parking brake of an old front-wheel-drive junker?

On my way down the I hit a number of shitty, seesaw drifts. Everyone hated it and wanted me to stop! Yes! It was working! Then I pulled out onto a country road and pointed for the big downhill bend that ran right by the old dump. It was the perfect place to hit one more sick drift. (It was the worst possible place.)

I grabbed the release handled and stabbed the little brake pedal and immediately looped it hard. My sister and her friend were screaming real screams. Absolutely nobody was having fun. We spun into the oncoming lane, then back into our lane before getting stuffed so deep into the snowbank we couldn’t open our doors. A guy in an F-250 came by shaking his head and extracted us. Everyone was impressed, mission accomplished. I still get a little pang of shame when I think about it. I don’t think my sister ratted me out though.

I’m sure at least one of you has a more embarrassing story than that. So, what is it? What’s your most embarrassing tale of being high-sided, tipped or otherwise stuck in the snow?