You think I'd have learned my lesson with the hurricane and
various other poorly predicted storms, but I guess I'm just wicked gullible
when it comes to New England weather.
Yesterday there was some snow -- not at all what I had been
expecting -- and this morning the weather people all claim, "Rain, high
thirties." I have an emergency
meeting at school, and even when I leave within my normal ten-minute range, I
easily arrive at school within the designated time. I decide to leave earlier, though, since I
must make copies first. 6:45 a.m. rolls
around, a full fifteen minutes earlier than my usual take-off time, so I tie up
my hiking boots (lately the school is always freezing) over my big socks, haul
my backpack onto my shoulder, and step outside to…
… crusted over icy-snow.
And sleet. Yup, it's friggin'
sleeting out.
I start the car, hit the defroster on full blast, and crank
over the little thingamajigee to defrost the rear window. I reach into the back seat, produce a large
brush-scraper combination tool, and start attacking the windows, first in vain
and then in earnest. There is a coating
of ice covered by a half-inch of crunchy snow, topped off by a crust of solid
sleet. It is still sleeting (not raining
like the weather people advised), and minute ice cubes are pinging off my head
and caroming off into oblivion.
I scrape the side mirrors with such vigor that I completely
reset them and don't realize this until I'm driving up the street. I can now see my side quarter panel from one
mirror and the street beneath my rear tire from the other. It appears that the roads may have been
treated, perhaps salted, sometime during the night, but I can hear the
crunching of the snow under my tires as I drive along. Everyone is driving slowly, and only one giant
SUV tears past the line of traffic. Normally
this might be a move met with awe, but during an ice situation, it's not
considered so swift.
I don't hit a truly icy patch until I am at the base of the
street where I work. I turn left to pull
into the street, and my car fishtails. It's
okay because no one's around, and fishtailing at ten miles an hour really isn't
all that spectacular. As I pull into a
parking space and begin sliding my way across the lot and to the slippery
sidewalk, I hear a truck come tear-assing into the lot, driven by the vice
principal, and I wonder what lit a fire under hit butt this morning.
Then I remember: the
emergency meeting. I check my phone for
the time. I have made absolutely no
headway this morning. The extra fifteen
minutes I gave myself has been sadly wasted. I have five minutes to make copies, unpack,
and get ready for both the day and the staff gathering. I push my way in front of another teacher at
the printer, thank her profusely, declare my undying and eternal love for her,
even hug her, and rush on with my morning prep.
The weather stays crappy for the entire day. I have another meeting after school, this one
planned well in advance, and have a date to meet a friend for dinner at 4:30
about twelve miles west of the school. I
have been looking forward to it for a week or so, and I am not going to let the
rain deter me. After all, I checked the
weather report three times during the day: one said rain and a high of 37,
another said it would clear up by the early afternoon, and another showed no
action in my area on the radar. Yet when
I leave the meeting a little after 3:00, it is sleeting again (or perhaps
still), and I slip off the edge of the sidewalk onto the pavement like a
bobsled driver heading into a hairpin turn. By the time I reach my car, it is obvious
there will be no dinner meeting; my friend's drive is far more treacherous than
mine, so I text and cancel. "Go
home," I tell her. "Be
safe. We can do this another time."
I manage to defrost the new crust of ice that has built up
on the car. I decide to listen to some
holiday music on my way home and flick the radio to the local all-Christmas
channel. The news is just finishing up
when the weather person announces, "And today, some light rain. Currently it's 37 degrees." I look at my temp read-out and see it is
actually 32 degrees and falling.
"Shut the hell up!" I yell at no one and
everyone. Damn weather. Damn forecasters. Damn ice and snow. And then I smile because, damnit, it's all
too ironic and suddenly incredibly funny. My mood, like the New England weather and the
best laid plans, can be unpredictable.
