Saturday, March 03, 2007

Snow Day

I woke up Thursday morning to the sight of freshly dumped snow. There wasn’t a lot of snow, maybe three or four inches, but there was enough of it. I pulled out the driveway, spun the tires and decided to put the trusty Jeep into four wheel drive. I drove a block to the main street I take to work cautiously as the side streets had not been plowed yet. I waited for a little while till there was an opening and turned.

The one thing I always do in fresh snow is gun the gas. Gunning the gas gives you an idea about how bad the roads are by how much your tires spin. With four wheel drive the tires will spin but it’s usually in a controlled manner in the direction you’re aiming at. Once you know the conditions of the road you can judge how fast you think it’s safe to drive and then exceed that by ten miles per hour.

Thursday morning my steering wheel did just about as much spinning as my tires did. After gunning the gas my Jeep took off fairly well in the fresh snow. Note: that was fresh snow. Turning on to the main road I encountered fresh snow that had been compacted down by thousands of cars. Fresh snow that has been compacted down by thousands of cars is really slippery. The back end of my car whipped out across the street leaving me pointed directly at the curb. Frantically spinning the steering wheel left to get me going in the right direction resulted in the back end sliding all the way back across the street, leaving me pointed at the other curb. I spun the wheel right and the same thing occurred. Realizing I wasn’t winning the battle with the snow I decided to lay off the gas and admit defeat. Yes my friends, I had the pedal down the whole time, nothing cooler than having all four tires spinning up snow at the same time.

After I regained my composure and checked my underwear for shit I came to a more logical method of testing the conditions (because I didn’t already know that it was slippery). I got the Jeep up to 15 miles an hour and jumped on the brakes. Immediately the anti-lock brakes kicked in and I could feel the vehicle start to slow down. There wasn’t anyone behind me so I kept the brakes on until I stopped. Two city blocks later I was stopped in the middle of the road.

I’m usually a careful and cautious driver. That is, on dry pavement I’m a careful and cautious driver. In the snow I take full advantage of the four wheel drive and anti-lock brakes. Knowing this I turned on to a side street and drove back home. You see, if the roads are that slippery that I don’t trust myself to get to work safely, do you think I’m going to trust some yahoo in a 1986 Civic who has 60,000 miles on his tires? Hell no, mothertrucker.

I pulled the Jeep in the garage, got the shovel out (how many more times do I have to do that?), and cleaned off the driveway and sidewalks. After that I sat in bed and finished off a book. Noon came around and I went up to the corner for lunch.

I would like to tell you what happened over the next eight hours but it’s all a little fuzzy. I will try my best. It started with two-for-one Southern Comforts and Coke on an empty stomach. After those started to take affect I ordered the [some Mexican plate I always get but don’t know the name of it as anything other than #23]. I ordered it “spicy” and holy crap was it ever (as was my crap Friday morning). I switched to beer and it all came apart. My goal was to put in eight hours of “work” to make up for the eight hours of work I was missing. Thank goodness for personal time. 5:30 I called G the hairdresser’s shop and to my surprise he was in. The Renter drove me over there and I had my hair cut. It was getting a little long; the last time I had it cut was on December 1st which just happened to be the other snow day of the season. As soon as I walked in the door I grabbed a glass and made myself a tasty SC and Coke. After the haircut the Renter went under the knife. G’s front desk person suggested I go tanning while the Renter was getting her hair cut. I had to think about it for a little bit but agreed. 15 minutes later I woke up naked in the tanning bed. The goggles had fallen off my head and I couldn’t find them (not too much room in those things to move around). The lights went off and I got dressed just as the Renter was getting done. We went back to the bar, I ordered a pitcher and a pizza, finished those off and left. I think I made it to my 8:00 goal, not quite sure.

Friday I learned more about what happened. G said he was having a hard time cutting my hair. I guess I wasn’t able to hold my head still while he was working on it. The bartender said I only drank half a beer out of the pitcher and left the rest. And front desk person at the salon said I left my underwear in the tanning booth.

You gotta love snow days.

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