A Winter Prophecy

Sitting on the sofa. Minding my own business. Researching. Silent clickety-click of computer keys.

Matt's voice.

"It's coming you know. The hour of apocalypse."

Glance over at him with awkward skepticism.

"The snow parking disaster. The snow parking apocalypse.

I don't know what we're going to do.

In those bleak days young men will see visions. Old men will dream dreams. Many of those old men will not survive the journey back to their apartments from their parking spots.

Look out there. It's bleak."

I look. We look.

"Look out there. Way out there is probably where we might be able to find parking."

Silence.

Matt's voice.

"Do you have a window scraper?"
"yeah."
"Do you have two?"
Exchange of a glance.
A sigh.
Silence conquers.

Return of the Dan'l

(Why does that read so uncannily much like "Devil" when I read it fast??)

At any rate, remember how I was missing this guy? Well he's back and bad as ever. There was no snow to shovel today, but soon enough.

Instead I had him help me out with a "current events" presentation I had- by that I mean I had him find me an article given a few basic criteria and start me up on what could be said on it. This was very helpful as I was still finishing up my other 8 page paper I needed to turn in today for my communications class about one of my other brothers, and what a good communicator he is based on our text. That was fun.

Anyways, after that I took Dan'l to campus with me and he read a whole book- the one I've been taking with me EVERYWHERE the last two months, always meaning to read, but never found the time to. It's called Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I'm a little jealous he got to read it today, but pretty inspired. If he can do it...

Then we swung by the only Trader Joe's in Milwaukee which happens to be a couple blocks from Cardinal Stritch and picked up something to make for dinner tonight. We're going asian and it's going to be awesome-- shamefully easy to prepare. That would be a win-win-win.

After that we tried to drive home. When I say tried, what I mean is between the slushy wetness, sleet, saltiness, my being out of washer-fluid, and WORST OF ALL having busted up wipers (they froze to the windshield without my realizing it and one of them snapped all crooked when I tried to turn them on) it just wasn't happening. You could hardly discern the shape of a car 10 ft in front of you, much less stop signs. So we stopped at a gas station. They of course didn't have any, but next door (without our realizing it) was a hardware type store and we got some there... after several trips to the car to figure out what type to get. Not only did I not know how long mine are, I also couldn't remember what the hell time of car I have. "Saturn" didn't cut it somehow. Picky, picky hardware men. I ended up just saying it's a wagon and making up the year. So then we embarked upon changing them, and believe it or not, between the two of us Dan'l and I CAN figure out how to change a set of windshield wipers! It amused me how both of us first tried it ourselves, then switched to trying to read the instructions, took one look at the instructions and went back to trying to figure it out ourselves. Whatever. It worked. We had a strangely disproportionate sense of accomplishment afterwards, but hey. Get your kicks where you can, right?

Since we got home Dan'l's been setting up his own blog with which to dazzle us all. It should be available for your enjoyment in the near future here: Hope is the Thing with Feathers.

Learn to Drive, Asshole

Today I nearly died.

I hate people who drive their cars in crappy weather when they clearly have no idea what they are doing. Take this morning for example.

TIME: 7:47AM. Rush Hour Traffic.
LOCATION: Milwaukee, WI
OFFENDER: AssholeInTheDirtyRedCar.

CONTEXT: So here I am in the right hand lane on a three lane road, going with the flow of traffic at 40mph in a 50mph zone. Reasonable considering the roads are not clear and it's slippery. The flow of traffic was working as one beast in unison. Until the AssholeInTheDirtyRedCar came along. Just AS I'M PASSING the right hand turn lane, whatshisface decides to swoop ahead of me at the last second, cut me off and swerve right, making an illegal right hand turn.

OPTIONS: The road conditions are such that stopping in time is simply not an option. My choices were as follows.
1) Slam right into the S.O.B. Tempting, to be sure, but my car would likely take most of the damage and I'D be hitting him (complicated) and I'm uninsured. No go.
2) Swerve left and hit the SchoolbusFullOfLittleKiddies. Yeah. I avoid schoolbuses when driving as a general rule in the winter. The only thing worse than an accident is an accident where little kiddies are involved.
3) Swerve into the HugeAssSnowDrift that's literally 3X as tall as my car at 40 mph. Seriously. It was unfathomably huge and looked like the equivalent of slamming into an iceberg.

CONCLUSION: So right, I took one for the team. It sucked. I was yelling "WWWHHYYYYYY?!?!" as I slammed into the huge-ass iceberg and spinned out. First of all, the impact really sucked, I nailed my head pretty hard (still have a headache). Second, my car whipped around after the nose got stuck in and I nearly hit the SchoolBusFullOfKiddies any way... some angel must have squeezed between us at the last second and acted as a buffer, cuz it was damn close. And by that I mean I'm a damn good driver and controlled my spin. (*twiddles thumbs*) Third, the iceberg- I'm NOT exaggerating.. iceberg.. FINE, snowdrift.- avalanched down on top of me. Fortunately there was a car-full of kindly consctruction worker guys with lots of muscles behind me that helped dig/push my car out the iceberg (*glare*) it was so deeply imbedded in.

AFTERMATH: My head hurts. I am SO MAD that AssholeInTheDirtyRedCar and he'd better pray I don't find him (Yup. He didn't even stop.). And I was late for my Anatomy&Physiology Lab. On the bright side I didn't seem to suffer any brain damage cuz I aced the quiz/test thingy postponed from the snowday on Wednesday. But I suspect that one was because it was easy-- I'm NOT on my "A"-game in that class... Yet.

At any rate, I guess this makes me a Hero... y'know... protecting the LittleKiddies and masterfully manuvering my spin so I miss them by a hairsbreadth. Talk about finesse. Or something. But in all earnestness, I've decided that the real trick to being a good driver in inclement weather is Avoidance. I mean this. I really do. Avoidance of other drivers primarily, avoidance of slippery sludgy icy snowy crap secondly, and avoidance of potholes thirdly. This is the trick. Avoid these things like the plague and you can be a masterful life-saver, iceberg-demolisher too.

Shoveling Bites.

I really miss this guy.

Yeah, he might look like a lazy SOB, but in reality he's a way better investment than a snowblower- he even scrapes off your car, no extra charge.

Sigh. Please come back from Texas soon, Dan'l!!!

It's... so...... coooooold.

I am so excited. A friend of Matt's gave us her heated mattress pad today. I will never wake up shivering again!!

Seriously, it's been in the negatives this week, with wind chill so insanely cold that you find your body involuntarily spasming just from being out in it a minute or so. At least mine does. I mean seriously. We couldn't even wash the rental cars at work in the heated car wash because all the same they turn to iceballs and by the time we drive them up to the airport all the doors are iced shut and the windows glazed over. And then there's poor old me. It really doesn't help my intense aversion to the cold that my car's heater core is broken, either. This means that as I'm shuddering and spasming with cold I have to turn the freaking air (yes, -5 degree air and colder) on intermittently to counter-act the fogging effect of my breath before it freezes to the windshield making it impossible to see. Every day. For at least a 25 minute drive. Several times. It's ridiculous. I have to use the windshield scraper on the windows on the INSIDE of the car, too. Sigh. Time's like these I pretend I'm Orphan Annie and sing "It's a Hard-Knock Life" to keep my spirits up.

But least now I can sleep warm. Sleep is the greatest.

I'm gonna go pre-heat my bed now...

The first encounter of the day: Monday, September 11th, 2006.

12:09am: Exit home with brother and two friends, driving brother's vehicle. Destination? Beer.

12:13am: Suspicious looking police car tailing vehicle is noted.

12:17am: Noted police car takes action, and pulls over vehicle for no immediately apparent reason, in a very shady part of town.

12:18am: Passengers inform driver registration on vehicle expired 11 days prior. Fix-it ticket already issued in the state of Minnesota 8 days prior. Fix-it ticket is procurred. Occupants of car make attempts not to fidget.

12:29am: Vehicle is surrounded by not 1, not 2, not 3, not 4, but FIVE cop cars.

12:31am: Vehicle is descended upon by the police officers from 3 different police cars, brandishing maglites, hands on holsters. Hands of all occupants have maintained clear visibility.

12:32am: Driver and passenger up front are questioned to no particular end. Expired plates are eventually established. Fix-it ticket and ID's are forfeited.

12:33am: Exchange of words between officers outside the vehicle. 'Judgement call' being the final verdict.

12:37am: Excess police cars slowly begin to disperse.

12:47am: Original officer returns with fine. Driver is asked to exit vehicle. Further questioning.

12:48-12:56am: Driver realizes officer has made his call unflexibly and decides to make him aware of what an ass he is under the pretense of 'explaining' and inquiring, and brings up 5 or 6 different points in their defense, the most pertinent of which being that owner of vehicle only arrived back in the state the tags were issued in two hours ago- neither of which two hours were during business hours, and as such owner has had no opportunity to correct offense. Officer begins to fidget and feel bad, but will not recind.

12:57am: Driver is satisfied with having made him feel guilty at the very least and relinquishes her fingerprint. Driver thanks officer for being so 'reasonable' and willing to discuss the issue. Driver delivers said message in such a friendly and convincing tone, smiling with the face and not with the eyes, that Officer does not detact the deep seated bitterness and sarcasm, and thanks her back bewilderedly.

12:58am: Driver returns to the vehicle with a $90 fine, trembling with rage.

12:59-1:05am: More rage. The journey to the bar is completed.

1:06am: Ahhhhhh. Beer and darts.

Mission Accomplished.

A Few Tips on Renting Vehicles (or, "A Haggling Opportunity Without Having to go to Tijuana")

Okay, so since I started working for a rental car agency I've learned a few handy things.

First of all, make a reservation online beforehand for the cheapest care they have. You're not really reserving a car, you see, you're reserving a rate. Furthermore, they have hardly have any of them in their fleet so odds are you won't even be driving one. In fact, all week I have yet to have had an economy class car available at either counter. They are then REQUIRED to give you a free upgrade to the next available class. For free! So before you do anything, act like you WANT the economy car, and then find out, specifically, what car they will be putting you in.

THEN, if that's still not as cool as what you wanted, you can upgrade. Upgrades are tricky. You see, the sales agent will say there's a deal or something- but there's not. They get to make up whatever-the-hell deal they want to. The deals only exist according to the whim of the sales agent.

Oh, and they'll give you discounts for AAA or Sams club memberships- but they don't mention that they MAKE UP WHAT THE STINKING DISCOUNT IS. In fact, they'll ask what airline you flew in on, and regardless of what airline you say, they'll give you a discount just to make you feel like you're actually getting a deal. They're just trying to get as much upgrade $$ as possible.

Talk them down- they'll go down if they think you'll just settle for the free upgrade anyways. They NEED you to pay a little more, regardless of how much, because it affects their pay if they have lots of contracts with no upgrades or extra fees. The sales agent can decide whatever rate they want to give you on the car. The coverage fees (Loss Damage Waivers, Supplemental insurance, etc.) are set in stone and usually superfluous, but they can adjust everything. They also have the ability to waive the extra driver fees too. Be hardnosed, but treat them nicely, and you can get a freaking awesome deal.

So yeah. There you go.