It was one of those Midwest winters where the snow would just not go away. The streets of our 250 person town were lined with snow banks where the plows had pushed it to the sides. All four girls were scrunched together in Dad’s white Ford truck and we slowly cruised down the road at 5 mph headed to the babysitter’s house early one morning.

This was before the days of infant carseats and seatbelts. We sat in that old truck, and older sister each with one of the baby twins on our lap. I was seven years old, my sister was five and the twins were almost one. There was always a fight between us older sisters about who would get which seat. To be truthful, each seat was a bad spot. If you sat too close to the gear shift you risked your shins getting bruised up from Dad’s jerky gear shifting movements. And if you sat next to the door, you were bound to take too long shutting the door, and you would get yelled at to hurry up. Dad worked nights at a factory and he was probably fighting some exhaustion and insanity at this point.

So there we were driving along, and we turned a corner, and then in slow motion, one of those twin babies flew out to the truck and into a snow bank. The moment is sort of froze in my brain. The baby in her fluffy snow suit, just laying there in all of that snow, wondering what in the Hell just happened. There was a moment of silence and then my dad yells…

“GET THAT BABY AND GET BACK IN THE TRUCK!”

So we got that baby, and we got back in the truck and continued on our way to the babysitter’s house. I am not sure how clear my memory is, but I do think I remember Dad smirking a little. We were all careful not to mention the experience to Mom for quite some time. Years later, GET THAT BABY AND GET BACK IN THE TRUCK is still one of my favorite things to say…