Snow rage. You know, aggressive drivers who slide in and out of slowed traffic, drive too fast down the barely clean break down lane, tailgate a stopped car, don’t clean off their cars and you get pummeled, scream at you or use obscene gestures while your drunk on defrost. Driving during a New England snow storm is the new kind of road hazard.
Sid the Sloth:
This may not be considered operating a motor vehicle but depending on how you approach a dirty automobile can reflect a driver’s ability to handle the elements when beginning the journey through a mock Alaskan winter. Let’s be real, our laziness creates countless problems when it comes to driving. This is not just limited to cleaning a mode of transportation off.
Who needs to move their hand to use this said blinker to indicate future whereabouts? Not Sid.
Who needs to strap the shit in the back of the truck down before taking off down the highway at 85 MPH? Not Sid.
Who needs to actually turn their head to check out what’s barreling down the next lane before planting their huge metal ass there? Not Sid.
So not to point out people directly I was referring to Sid the Sloth from Ice Age.
He’s a sloth. And his name is Sid. And he is adorable.
Maybe if I think of every driver out there as Sid my commute anywhere may be less angry.
Anyway.
There are people like my father who think it effective to dig out a little hole on their windshield that gives them wide range of nothing. There are people like my husband who just get in and drive; the make shift wind does all the work. Right.
Friendly FYI* I could not see out his windshield for the first half of our ride to the gym the other morning. I don’t want to talk about it. Although, as some of you may know, I was probably better off. I tend to freak out in the passenger’s seat. “The road looks shiny, is that black ice, go slow, this is bad, my god why are you going fast, we are going to die.” I am basically the equivalent to a carbon monoxide detector whilst in a motor vehicle I am not operating. “GET OUT, GET OUT, DEATH, IMPENDING DOOM.” Maybe he did this purposely for that reason.
Then there are the people in the SUVs, the trucks and the vans that conveniently forget that there is in fact a top to their vehicle. I call this the Charlie technique. Charlie is my faithful companion. What he can’t see means others can’t see which means there is no existence of the alleged unseen. Therefore he is not responsible. You see?
And then finally there are also people like me. I like to think at least I am not the only one.
It started snowing around 1PM. So I started my car at 1:30PM and continued to keep starting it until I left at 3:45PM. I start my car hours before I plan on going anywhere when it snows in the hopes that everything will just melt the fuck off. I cannot be bothered and I hate, HATE, when I open my door and snow falls into my seat. Wet ass all the way home. No thank you. With that said all other sloth like methods mentioned above go right out the window, I just pre heat my car, like an oven, with cupcakes in it.
Recently it has been made law in my state that you cannot drive your car until the top, trunk, hood, chest, ass is completely cleaned off so as to not smack others with your snow litter I presume. What a useless rule of the road. Cops are also to sloth-y to use their amazing ticketing power to fine drivers who do not use their blinkers, what makes you think they will pull behind someone who has ‘Super Storm Nemo’ coming off their car to serve them a ticket?
(I respectively have three cops in the family, and they all know if they actually listen to me, that I have a thing with the blinkers, the indication of lane changes, turns, any action taken in which another driver need be aware. Or the lack thereof in this state.)
In any case, don’t be this asshole people, just don’t do it.
Pride and Prejudice:
We all think it; oh it’s really not that bad out. We see the snow falling and we are in a complete, utter belief that we are the best damned snow driver the world has ever seen. So good in fact, that the Winter Olympics should make an event in our honor. Snow luge, Ha. Relax, RELAX, we got this.
My dear Tiffanie left work early to get home safely, she left right around the time I was on phase one of pre heating my car. She obviously has no problem admitting that braving snow is not her flavor of chips. And its not that I wanted to get home unsafely but I failed to acknowledge the fact that no matter how remarkable I am at driving in the snow others do not pride themselves on having these abilities.
(True story, you know it’s a true story when your husband tells you as much. What man tells his woman they are good drivers? So for Eddie to tell me I am master snow driver was a shocker but I will freaking take it.)
I also, for some unknown reason, judge the weather on how it looks. On this particular day we had beautiful sugar snowflakes. The kind that glitters on the way down from the big marshmallow fluff sky and lands making a blanket of confectionary sugar and sprinkles...maybe I should save these parallels for gluttony.
I was in complete denial that anyone could not drive in this Sugarland. And so started the texting between Tiffanie and I.
Tif: “It’s really bad out here. LOL, but seriously. Be CAREFUL!”
(I am unsure why it being bad out was so laugh out loud funny to her… maybe because from the comforts of my cubicle prior to this message I was telling her I would be fine based on delicious snowflakes, either way, she maybe finally got her point across.)
Me: “Okay, you scared me, I am sweating, and I am leaving.”
(Apparently all you have to do to scare me is use the word seriously. Then I sweat. I recently found out I sweat and turn red when eating broccoli too. Just a Hillary fun fact.)
At my first red light not even a quarter mile from the office Tif receives this: “Fuck, its slick out.”
She told me so. All the sudden sugar was burnt popcorn.
Me: “KMN this is redick. I do not have the gas or patience to be stopped in traffic today.”
Tif: “You really need to listen to me and leave early when it snows. What if your mom was driving in this right now? Almost out of gas. You’d be a worried mess.”
(What does my Mom have anything to do with this? I don’t know. Maybe its Tiff’s subconscious trying to tell me she xo xo’s me. I love you too.)
Me: “I’d be in the ER from anxiety. Sadly they are out in this somewhere in state, I hope, and I am trying not to think about it.”
I know this because I had already tried calling my parents and they weren’t home. I called them because it is normal for them to take road trips in severe weather. I get worried. I have to know they are safe or I am in an inconsolable, obsessive panic until I have contact. Totally justified, honestly, they once went out in a hurricane to go check out the flow of a waterfall. “We never made it to the falls, there was flooding all over the roads, our car was sliding all over the place, it was so cool.” Sigh.
..Minutes later..
Tif: “So. LOL! How many times have you called your mom?”
Me: “Three LOL. I hate you.”
Tif: “PMPL”
(a.k.a ‘pee my pants laughing’. She relishes in my alarm, her mom’s panic, anything really with a high degree of anxiety involved she loves.)
I am pretty sure I just rambled off the topic of pride.
Green with Envy:
I always start off cautious and safe when I nudge my car into the heart of a storm. I have a heart-to-heart with my G6 “..we can get through this extraordinary beauty, me and you, we got this, we have been through worse… like the last one of these I had to get home from work in, remember that time, singing Christmas carols to fellow drivers...” By the way that is what my mother named my car, ‘the extraordinary beauty’. Why? I am going to say because I am driving it, and that may sound cocky but if you saw the POS I drive you would realize it is not cocky, but the only logical explanation.
Where was I, oh yes, I am driving safe, chitchatting with my car letting her know I am in control while she elegantly slides us onto the highway. I cruise along a little ways and what do you know I am stuck in traffic. I try to play it off still being a diligent driver, try to put on some calm music, a little Louis Armstrong, Frank Sinatra, make sure I have some distance for gliding, not to be confused with sliding, we don’t slide we glide. Jesus walks on water but we sashay on ice.
No matter how positive you are you will undoubtedly go through a feeling of discontent towards those damn SUV, mother trucker, van wagons. They I am sure do not have to have pep talks with their transport while speeding down the breakdown lane, no worries that their nonexistent ABS won’t kick in. This is totally not jealousy. I totally never think of car dealerships when driving in snow. EVER.
Me: “I almost got hit by a plow riding in the break down lane because, you know, plows fit in that lane for sure.”
Tif: “Oh dear.”
Me: “Great example plow man! Now there’s trucks trying that, I’m gunna get hit. I’m signing off ttys.”
**I would like to note I am extremely against texting and driving. On a typical day my phone is located in my purse or cup holder. But in light of the fact that I wasn’t moving for 90% of this ride I labeled it an exception. I maybe just made myself a hypocrite but no one is perfect and I was having some serious road rage because Irish. I am Irish. Our heads get hot at an alarming rate. It’s pathetic. This isn’t really an excuse. I am just going to stop.STOP.
..Moments later..
Me: “Okay I weaved my car out of the line of fire after lots of swearing, middle fingers and car honks; I’m back to being a sitting duck. I have too much ADHD for this.”
Tif: “Oh dear.” (there’s that ‘oh dear’ again)
Me: “I can’t just sit here. THIS IS ONLY SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN IN MY CUBE.”
Tif: “PMPL!”
Me: “LOL that was a good one.”
(You see due to impending job elimination, probably, maybe a long story, I don’t do much in that cube. They didn’t even bolt my cubical walls to the floor. Nothing like foreshadowing.)
Tif: “Deep breaths.”
Little did I know at this time my little peacock, peacock is Tif’s household name, was sipping on White Russians. White Russians I needed in this very moment. White Russians that would have helped with the whole deep breathing thing. White Russians that was distracting Tiffanie from conversing with me, leaving me to make serial car plans like singing out the window at other drivers. I do this. A lot. When I am stuck I serenade my surrounding friends with song. Helps with the smoldering defrosting.
So not only was I having a raging jealous hard on for a bigger, taller, beefier car I was in need of a drink, drinks my friend was cruising through.
Need, Speed and Greed
Me: “If one more person drives the breakdown lane to cut this line of unmoving cars I am going to bump them off the fucking road. I am sick of sitting here like a jack ass too but you don’t see me being a dick.”
(I believe I referenced breakdown lane driving as a peeve in a previous blog, I wasn’t lying.)
Tif: “Focus on the road!”
Me: “I am but I am not moving LOL!”
Tif: “LMAO oh. Okie.”
Me: “I am ready to get out of the car and stretch.”
(Stretching is much better than that one time I was stuck in the middle of a blizzard and some guy got out of his car to take a piss and I got out and pelted a snow ball at him. I was bored and in turn started a snow ball fight in the middle of the highway. In the middle of a blizzard. Those were the days.)
Tif: “Oh dear. PMPL!”
Me: “My luck then the cars would start moving and I’d get run over.”
Tif: “If you do that you’ll probably be on the evening news! LOL.”
Fame. I would too, the news covers 95% tragedy and 5% joy, good balance.
Me: “I am still not moving. I feel a blog coming on. Oh there will be blogging tomorrow.”
(Not that it matters, blogs take me forever to write up. I could be blogging tomorrow and we still may never get it until next year.)
Tif: “If you ever get home!”
Me: “Lucky enough I am caught up at work…” …bahahhaha.
So none of this had anything to do with greed…. Ah moving on.
Grapes of Wrath
I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger… Those who continue to pass me!
It cannot be helped because you are a New England Driver and New England drivers are what gave way to the expression ‘road rage’. There comes a point in your stagnant travels that the possibility of making it home before the day after tomorrow diminishes. The songs on the radio have now been repeated eighteen thousand times. Your foot is cramped from tap, tap, tapping the breaks. You’re suffocating from forced heat but shivering from the window open to fight falling asleep.
To top it off the breakdown lane is happening place; you are getting flat out pissed. You have scruples, what if an ambulance needs to get down the lane to save someone’s life, am I the only one who is thinking this? You will not be a follower of bad decisions. But everyone else is. And it’s making you livid. Where are their morals? This just isn’t right, where is the justice. STOP CUTTING US ALL OFF. The next one after the next one I am lanestraddling. I will do it. Don’t you dare test me!
BUT glorious marvel you don’t have to be that person because the red, wait now it’s a shade of violet, faced man behind you made the choice for you, much sooner. Now he has cars in his wake following in his lead to straddle between. If you are emergency personal he will let you pass but if you’re that Toyota Tundra that just came up on him your shit out of luck. And was the Tundra ever, he ended up stuck in a ditch because he tried going to wide. Teehee.
YOU.ALL.SHALL.NOT.PASS.
All is right in the world again. You feel a bond with your fellow irate drivers. You send a friendly wave, I felt your pain, and we got this. We will survive. You feel stupid because fuming man has ignored you but so what, morale is back. You may be stuck but you are stuck together.
Curiosity is Gluttony
Tongue out window trying to catch snowflakes. I mean come on it is now dinner time; I have nothing but some stale Austin Peanut Butter Crackers in my car. My stomach quite possibly may be knawing on my lung to kill hunger pains. Due to a healthy lifestyle I am not allowed to eat the crackers. They are only there in case of an emergency, and I am pretty sure my trainer’s idea of a crisis is not being stuck in snow traffic but more like a zombie apocalypse.
Lack of food is making me delusional.
Me: “I am no snow angel right now you know, I am a snow donkey. I AM A SNOW ASS.”
Who am I being an asshole to, I don’t know. Myself? For not eating the damn crackers! Just eat them. No I won’t! Polly wanna cracker? GAH!
*POFF*
Crackers can now be found somewhere thrown in the depths of my car.
A Losers Lust
My intense desire to get home is likely similar to Eve and that damn apple. Damn right I am going to eat this apple, I am going to eat this healthy, delicious apple and be home. And it will be amazing. If I don’t die first. Since I am allergic to raw apples.
Me: “I moved a foot. Praise the lord it is a miracle…I feel my car should be dressed up as a turtle. I want to strap a Ninja Turtle back pack to the hood of my car the next time I have to drive in a storm.”
I had lost Tiffanie somewhere along my journey. Maybe because she was the smart one who was home, warm, drinking and I was out in the big bad world. Talking to myself.
Me: “On the road again, I just can’t wait to getOFF the road again. Donkey sang that in Shrek.”
Tif: “Oh dear LOL!”
(She’s a woman of many words when she drinks.)
Me: “Well, at least my mom is home, I had a lot of time to check in on that, LOL.”
End Old Testament
