- Look at calendar, make sure the day is Friday January 21st 2005.
- Glance outside window, verify that yes, there is a rapidly growing 2' high blanket of snow on the ground, note that visibility beyond 30 feet is little or none
- Get in car
- Drive
That's all it takes, folks! The few times I went out last night, what should have been 20 minute car trips were stretched into at least 4 times as long as they should have been. Sitting in traffic. Waiting. Watching the wipers as they did nothing but accumulate slippery, snowy globs of mucky ice and smear water all over the windows (of course mostly on the driver's side)... Feeling my colon tighten frantically while watching some dumbass fishtail and almost smack into the side of my car. Sometimes I wish cars were made out of pillows. Not just because they would provide greater cushioning during impact. Take a moment to imagine how pretty it would be if you were just in a horrible a car wreck, but were able to look up and see a spectacular display of goose feathers flying around everywhere. It would be a tremendous sight indeed, not to mention it would keep you calm, cool, and entertained until the ambulance arrived.
Pardon my wandering mind... back to the topic at hand: driving in hazardous conditions. Of course, one cannot possibly follow all of the above steps accurately unless one had a time machine (see: step 1), as it is now January 22nd as I type this, and calendar days do not go backwards. So to those of you who wish to try being an idiot, don't worry. For one thing, I'm sure we'll have future snowstorms in which you can take a stab at it. And secondly, we're human beings. That means for many of us by default (including yours truly), the second we wake up every day and feel our feet hit the cold floor, the idiocy has already begun.
