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| Oh, it looks so pretty! Until it attacks you, that is... |
If you’ve seen me on Facebook or Twitter any time over the past two
weeks, you know we received some snow. Or, more aptly put, a shit-ton of snow.
Missouri prefers a debilitating ice storm to a blizzard, so when we get a
decent-sized snowstorm every few years, we’re out of practice. It always seems to
come as surprise.
At this point in time, you might be saying to your computer, “Well,
Sarah, you know they have this thing called the ‘weather’. You could check it,
you know. It comes on the TV and the internet, and you can even get it on your
phone. And then you could plan accordingly.”
And you would be right. Except, the weather people lied two weeks
ago, when the first (yes, there’s been more than one) snowstorm hit. What was
supposed to be three to six inches ended up being thundersnow (have you ever
seen that?) that dropped a foot on us in a period of a few hours.
You would think, with my Type-A, only child, perfectionism, I
would have been prepared for a snowstorm. You would be wrong. Let me illustrate
by highlighting some major points in my day, two Thursdays ago, when ‘Storm Q’
hit:
8:00am I go to
work. The boys are out of school for the impending snowstorm, but I plan to
work this morning. There’s nothing happening, and not a flake to be seen. I
have a meeting to set up at 11:00—which is also when the heavy stuff it
supposed to hit—and as soon as I get everyone situated, I can head back home. I
live three miles away from campus, so it’s not like I’ll be making a trek
through the wilderness in a blizzard like Pa in Little House on the Prairie.
I have just
destined myself to suffer, by the way.
9:00am Huh. It’s
starting to snow.
10:00am Damn. It’s
really snowing. Good thing the plow trucks are going by! If they keep the roads
okay, I should still be good in an hour or so.
11:15am I am heading
out the door. There is snow everywhere. I’m thinking we may already have six
inches on the ground. I don’t know what the plow trucks have been doing when
they drove by, but it doesn’t look like this road has been plowed at all. What
the heck? Was that lightening?
11:30am I watch
traffic come to a creeping halt on the road home. At first I think it’s because
the wind is gusting so bad that visibility is virtually zero. Then when the
wind lets up for a bit, I see that a plow ahead of me has run off the road. The
guys get out and start directly all of us behind them to turn around.
11:45am I am now
heading AWAY from my house. I can’t go down this road to the right; three
people have spun out. I cannot go down these two roads to the left; people are
stuck. Traffic is now not moving to the north or to the south. K calls me to
see where I am.
12:30pm Why didn’t I fill
the car with gas? Why didn’t I bring my cell phone charger? Why does Ant keep
texting me asking if I can see all the snow? I am in the middle of the damn snownami,
kid! K calls me to see where I am.
1:00pm I try to
pull the car off in a parking lot so I can walk back to work. I’ve just
received a text saying the campus is in full closure. J’s work is closing, and
he’s pushing people out of the mall parking lot and onto the road because there’s
about nine inches on the ground and no one can drive. I am still going to wrong way, if ‘going’ is
what you call it when you’re not moving. The parking lot maneuver didn’t work.
Now I’m stuck. K calls me to see where I am.
1:30pm I am running
low on gas, I have been at this shit for over two hours, I haven’t moved down
the road, I am soaking wet from digging out the wheels, but by God, I AM NO
LONGER STUCK. I did it, bitches! Well, actually six undergrads took pity on me,
and helped push my two ton car out. Remind me to never pull into a parking lot,
again. K calls me to see if I’m still stuck.
2:00pm J: I am coming
to get you!
Me: NO! Save yourself! Someone has to live for the children!
J: NO! I will rescue you! I will come and get you!
Me: You will get stuck just like me! You will be stuck for hours!
J: Oh, that’s okay. I filled up my car and grabbed the phone
charger this morning.
Bastard.
2: 15pm We are
moving! We are moving! I am going to make it to this next intersection and they
will have it plowed and I can start driving in the right direction and I will
make it home, and I can meet J at the grocery store parking lot and we can
caravan home together and I might even find an open gas station!
2:30pm Huh, this
road hasn’t been plowed. Thank goodness no one else is on it! I’ll make it
through the hills as long as I don’t have to stop! K calls me to see where I
am.
2:32pm Oh. My. God.
That hill is like a damn parking lot. There must be thirty cars spun out on
that damn thing. Most of them are Jeeps and SUVs…
2:35pm J: I am
going to walk to where you are.
Me: You are going to walk a mile to me, in the blizzard, with a
shovel? Because I don’t need you so much, but we sure as hell could use a
bigger shovel to get some of these cars out of the middle of the road.
3:00pm We’ve pushed
enough cars out of the way that we now have a decent path to get up the hill. I
have traction control and all-wheel drive and a transmission I can switch to
manual. And now? Now I have my shovel-wielding husband with me. We’ll leave his
car at the grocery store, and get ourselves home.
3:10pm: We clear the
hill, and come to the next hill, where everyone we’ve just pushed out has
gotten stuck, again. You have got to be kidding me! J’s driving, and so he
whips the car around in the middle of the road and starts going back the way we
came.
3:12pm Holy crap! More
people have gotten stuck and have clogged up the spot we just freaking cleared!
J whips the car around onto a side road that hasn’t been touched, but also is
void of any other cars. K calls to see where we are.
3:25pm Our street!
Our street! I CAN SEE MY HOUSE FROM…Oh, no. No, dude in front of us, don’t
stop. Don’t stop, don’t stop!
3:30pm I have
walked home—where the boys are shoveling the drive for us. I grab them to help
get the car unstuck.
3:40pm We get the
car to the driveway, and we have to “unstuck” it again to get it IN the
driveway.
3:45pm This is my
house! These are my children! These are our things! I will have dry clothes! And
a hot bath! And beer! And I WILL MAKE SOUP!
3:50pm I email my
boss and tell her I’ll be working from home the next day. She writes back immediately
and tells me that’s a great idea. I won’t have to drive in this crap for three
more days!
At least this story has a happy ending, and no one in our town was
seriously injured in the craziness. The news reported that several of the
highways around us also had to shut down, and people were stuck on the roads in
some places until nine that night. Also, this is the first of many wild snow
stories we had over the past two weeks… During the next storm we lose power and
INTERNET! I watched two trash trucks get stuck on our road. And, Sophie develops
an elaborate ritual for going outside after falling through a snow bank…
