After drowning in snow and ice and everything (not) nice AND being stuck indoors with our angelic children (ahem), here are a few thoughts about the last couple weeks:
- We don’t care what you believe in – someone, somewhere is messing with us when we get 17 inches of snow and -15 degree temperatures.
- What is with the random shovels on the side of the Interstate? Someone got their car stuck, dug it out with a shovel and then threw it on the side of the Interstate because they don’t need it anymore? What happens if you get stuck again a mile down the road? Hopefully, you will stumble upon an orphaned shovel, we guess.
- It would suck to be a snowplow driver on many levels, but mostly because you can’t really make lame excuses to get out of work when you just don’t feel like going in. You can’t call in and say you don’t have four-wheel drive to get out of your neighborhood because they’ll send a truck out to get you.
- Do you think snowplow drivers plow their own neighborhoods first? And then their mom’s neighborhood?
- Don’t care how big your house is, it is way too small when you’re stuck inside for days.
- Don’t care how much alcohol you have in your house, it is way too little when you’re stuck inside for days.
- We call BS that it takes men two hours each day to shovel the driveway. They just want two hours of quiet time. Jerks.
- We predict that the maternity centers of local hospitals will be unusually packed in 9 months. Do you remember the kindergarten boom five years after the October snowstorm of 1997? Wait for it.
- Only in the Midwest can your hair literally freeze in the months of December-February if you don’t thoroughly dry it before heading outside. And your snot, too.
- Remember when people kept commenting on what a wonderful, extended fall we experienced? Those same people can bite us now.
- Why does it take 30 minutes of “prep time” to get your kids ready to go outside to sled? Thirty minutes of back-breaking labor only to receive 15 minutes of quiet time in return before they inevitably get too cold and head back inside?
- Is it bad that we contemplate locking our sliding glass doors as soon as we send them outside to sled?
- Why is it that minivans are some of the worst automobiles to be driving around during a snow storm? There is nothing worse than being stuck in a neighborhood on your way to daycare because you can’t navigate the streets. Oh, wait, there is something worse. Having screaming children in the minivan when you get stuck.
- We will admit that women might just be the worst drivers about nine months out of the year. But, boy oh boy, leave it to men and their trucks to even the score come winter. We don’t care how much horsepower you got. Horsepower won’t prevent you from spinning out into the ditch.
- Still don’t understand how global warming can dish out 17 inches of snow and bitter cold temperatures.
Since the high temperature tomorrow is supposed to be a negative number, I’m sure we (and you) will have many more things to add to this list in the days and weeks to come.
Heidi Woodard and Melissa Cruickshank work together at a local health insurance company. They are both married. Heidi has three children; Melissa has a daughter.
