Snowpocalypse Now
21 Dec
Everyone in the south-east had their adventures this weekend, I’m sure. Mine were awfully funny, and I do mean awful. As you may or may not know, any time it snows below the Mason-Dixon line (at least, in places where there aren’t loads of mountains) people freak the f#%k out. The department of transportation, no matter which state you call home, will inevitably do nothing until there’s a foot of snow on the highway– which of course they knew was coming, but did nothing to prepare for. At the 1 foot mark, they’ll issue a statement saying that they’re waiting until it stops snowing to do anything, and you shouldn’t leave your house.
Smart!
Except that my husband and one of his classmates were on their way up from Duke University. Normally this is a 5 hour drive, in bad traffic. Saturday, it took about 15. I know, I know, they ought not to have left in the first place, but they did, and it would’ve been all right if they hadn’t been stuck in a traffic jam on I-95. By the time they got to Arlington, it was 2am, and here’s 5-foot-nothing me digging my truck out from under2 feet of snow, which looked like an igloo by this time. I braved the completely unplowed, unsalted back streets with my 4wd, thanking all the gods I was raised in the mountains… and okay, having a lot of fun. I rescued my husband in the Chipotle parking lot, since his friend’s car couldn’t leave the main highway– which was sorta kinda clean.
White knight. Yeah.
Days like that are the only reason I haven’t yet run out of ideas*. It’s true what they say, bad things don’t happen to writers, ideas happen. Two dudes trapped in a car for 15 hours having to piss on the side of the road (or in bottles. Not that they did that. Er). Deserted city with snow drifts on the road at the witching hour.
Hey, I never said they were good ideas, just ideas. Mwahaha!
But man, life gets surreal sometimes. I live a quarter of a mile from Washington, DC and it suddenly turned into Barrow, Alaska. (Minus the vampires… mostly.)
Happy Solstice/Yule!
*That knocking was me. On wood. Oh hell, I’m sure I just jinxed it.
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Now playing: Super Furry Animals – The Placid Casual
via FoxyTunes
I am glad they made it home safely. gotta love anyone who can have fun in their 4×4 at 2 in the morning. My kind of fun.
The ideas are out there, ripe for the picking. Good to see they made it home.
Huzzah for childhoods in the mountains! I am sorry that hubby and classmate had such a hellish trip home, but I *love* the image of you digging out the car and rescuing them.
I lucked in to an early-ish flight home on Friday, else I would have been cursing the weather gods myself, no doubt stuck at an airport somewhere. As it was I got home a couple of hours before the storm, in time to sip coffee and watch the snow fall, then spent an idyllic Saturday afternoon picking out the tree while more inches fell. No complaints here.
First guy: It’s so cold. So cold…
Second: We could…um…conserve body heat.
First: I’ve always loved you.
*porn music starts
Natalie is pretty funny…
I suppose that they’re lucky it didn’t go to or three days or they would have been canibalizing each other.
I saw some photos on the internet of DC. Yep, lots of snow. It’s cool that you went out to rescue him. Katey the hero! You rock girl!
Now that’s the kind of snow I remember from when I was a kid. Piles and piles and piles. $(#$&@! global warming leaves me with effing ice all the time. Great Googly-Moogly!
I’m sure I wouldn’t survive. I turn purple when it drops below 10C! Pissing in the snow at 2am – I think it would fall off!
Have a happy and safe festive season.
Jamie, mine too! I can’t think of much that’s more fun. Maybe mud and a 4×4… but only slightly.
Danielle, they are. Smack me if I ever try to say they’re not. What an ungrateful brat I’d be.
Megan, ha! I guess that image would amuse you, since we’re pretty much the same size… oh dear. Sounds like your weekend was lovely, which no one ever expects when holiday travel is concerned. I’m so glad! <3
Nat, bow-chicka-bow-bow. Knew I could count on you for my daily dose of yaoi!
Alan, I wonder now if they made cannibal jokes. Must remember to ask. And yes, we got slammed really hard. I do feel quite heroic. *heroic pose* See.
Yeah Aaron, we usually get ice in these parts– just coats the trees and it sucks. But this was good old-fashioned igloo-in-the-front-yard building weather.
BT, you make a valid point. There’s another story idea–
Wait. No.
Thanks for the wishes, and the same to you and yours!
Gotta love snow. I mean, I know weather forecasters aren’t reliable, but would a little salt in advance be so bad? Especially somewhere like the US – at least here it’s rare to find yourself outside of walking distance of food and company even if you can’t manage the roads (though the pavements are lethal). Our roads are still passable by people in cars, but apparently not by taxis or buses, and the trains are running a little slower than usual. I do feel sorry for everyone who got stuck on the Eurostar – that’s a premise for a horror story if ever I heard one, stuck in a dark tunnel underneath ocean, miles from both Britain and France.
England grinds to a halt under the paltry weight of 2 inches of snow… We don’t do feet.
Nat, my point exactly about the snow! And they did know it was coming, they’re just dumber than a box of hair.
But yes, too true about the Eurostar story. That’s just begging to be written…
Cate, apparently Virginia inherited that trait directly, then. Can we blame Elizabeth I?
For the record – cannibalism was briefly discussed, but never seriously considered. As for peeing in Gatorade bottles, no comments.
bad things don’t happen to writers, ideas happen.
This is my new motto.
On the cannibalism – I have a couple friends who did, honest to god, get stranded in Donnar pass. Thankfully AAA saved them from needing to cannibalize each other – I told her they should’ve offered to sell their story as commercial fodder. “If only the Donnar party had gotten a AAA membership….”
No comments, huh Bala? That’ll be the day!
Megh, I think it has to be mine too. And wow… Donnar pass. That’s another one of those things that if you wrote about it, no one would believe. Awesome.