This winter thus far has been anything but a regular ‘winter’, in that it has pretty much just been cold, wet, and miserable. Just not cold enough or wet enough to actually snow or ice anything up.
Basically, a more annoying than usual Autumn.
That was, until the other night. We went from a chance of light wintry mix – the closest thing we’ve had to snow all season, mind you – to full-on snow. Not a lot, just a couple of inches, but certainly enough to blanket everything and cause all manner of traffic issues in my town.
That isn’t where the problem was, at least not for me, anyway.
You see, my commute to work is just under 50 miles each way, which takes roughly an hour to get there in the evening, and a bit over an hour to get home in the morning. This tends to take longer when it snows, if only due to idiots who can’t drive right when it rains, let alone when crystallized rain falls from the sky. So, I asked My Lovely Bride™ to please wake me up, should it actually snow, and look like it might amount to something.
I didn’t actually expect it to do anything, because it hadn’t all season.
I was wrong.
So, My Lovely Bride™ woke me up what felt like mere minutes after my head hit the pillow, but also felt like it was just a couple of hours before I normally get up. “It’s snowing! You need to see this!”, she exclaimed.
I popped up out of bed, because I will admit, I secretly was hoping for some snow to fall this winter. You see, I kind of have this reputation as “The Guy Who (Almost) Always Makes It In To Work When It Snows”. Considering that I drive 50 miles each way, in a 2015 Chevy Spark, mind you, it makes for some good fun when I can point this out to my co-workers who don’t make it in, despite living much closer to our office, and driving cars much more suitable for the conditions.
I’m kind of a dick about it, actually. If I can make it in to work, why can’t they?
Well, plot twist: I didn’t make it in last night.
Okay, let me set the scene for you: It’s just a bit after 2pm, despite it feeling as though it were both 11am and 5pm simultaneously. I wasn’t quite awake, you see, but I had been roused enough to put my furry slippers on, so I could step out onto the front porch to look at the snow falling all around us. Huge flakes of snow, falling gently all around, which was indeed blanketing our neighborhood in white. We had roughly an inch of snow on the ground at that point, and it didn’t appear to be stopping anytime soon.
Now, if I had left it at that, and had just stepped back inside the house, everything would have been fine. While we ended up with about two inches of snow in our area, the city was out plowing and dropping ice-melt on the bridges and major streets, so all I had to do was make it a few blocks before I would have had clear sailing all the way to work.
The Chevy Spark might be a tin can with wheels, but it handles driving in lightly snowy conditions just fine, even without snow tires.
Alas, I didn’t just turn around and go back to bed. I didn’t reset my alarm clock so I could get up an hour early, to allow me more time to get to work, should I need it. I didn’t do the smart thing.
Instead, I stepped down off of the porch, to walk out into the middle of my front yard. I wanted to let the snow fall all around me, if only for a moment.
My slippers are smooth-soled. Very warm and comfy, due to the fur-lining, but still… not the best foot-wear when stepping into the snow.
So I fell on my ass.
Yeah. Anyway, I ended up going back to bed, after I picked my stupid self up and made it back into the house again. And after I had called my work, to tell them I wouldn’t be coming in, due to my now-screaming lower back aggravation. And after I had taken some spare pain meds I have left over “in case of emergency”, suddenly the back pain wasn’t really a problem anymore.
Oh, it still hurt. I just didn’t care.
So, now it’s been over a day, and I’m back at work again. My back still hurts, and I may have to look into getting another steroid shot in order to fix it, should this continue to be a problem. I have a disk that burst a few years ago, and is pressing on my spine right at the bottom, for which only steroid shots or surgery will generally help. Yay.
But I’m here. Miserable, but here.
And I really hate snow right now.