Snow Day! - 12/1/06
I woke up on Friday to a blanket of snow outside my window.
Here's the view from my street.
I've always loved snowstorms. Everything turns white and clean and pretty. But even beyond that, it does something magical to me. Blizzards give me this giddy, school-boy excitement and there's no explaining it.
The city still glows, even under a foot of powder. And I'm suddenly convinced that nothing can go wrong.
I should have known better when I saw my car...
The freeway was crawling at 5-10 miles an hour...
Cars were stranded in the middle lane of the freeway and the cops couldn't do much about it.
Every mile or so, there was another car stranded in the middle of the road. My 20 minute commute to work, from the city to the suburbs, was pushing 2 hours already.
Then my car decided she doesn't like sitting in standstill traffic for 2 hours. So in a blinding twist of irony in this freezing blizzard, she decided to overheat.
I pulled off the inching freeway and parked on a street and decided to hike in the blizzard to the nearest gas station where I bought engine coolant and hiked back. The car seemed to cool down again, but I figured she should not have been drained of coolant since she just had an oil change (and new tires thankfully!). But the mechanic said there was nothing wrong. <shrug>
So I pulled into work just after 11am. Only 3 and half hours late! But I think I got some brownie points for showing up at all, since a lot of coworkers never did. We got free lunch for the effort, too!
Around noon, the sun came out and the plows had finally showed up.
And then the VP's let us out way early, at 3:30, and even wiped off our cars and snowblowed us out of our spots!
I think another guy would have been enraged at the day I had... maybe I would have too... but when it snows, I can't feel anything but sheer joy to be alive. The feeling fades as the snow turns slushy and dirty and grey and the cold sets in and then there's not much great about winter here... But on those first snow days in the Midwest, there's no better time of year.
Posted by heydomsar
2006-12-05
go back | random brainstorm | go forth
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