I like snow. I like to drive. I do not like snow driving. At least not on the freeway with 10,000 gazillion other drivers. Around town? Enh. No problem. But out there on the I94 18-wheel Slogway with all the other Thanksgiving Sunday travelers? Not good. I think this comes from when I was a college kid and had to drive my crappy old rear-wheel drive Pinto wagon (remember those?) four or five hours north to the Yoop for holidays.

Lemme see. There was the time I fishtailed off the road into the median and probably the only reason I didn’t flip over was because of the two feet of soft snow that grabbed my little vee-hickle and swirled it into a [relatively] slow-motion donut. A passing trucker pulled us out and we were good to go, if a little shaken.

And then there was the time that an hour of driving through a heavy wet slushy snowstorm caused muddy slush to coat my vee-hickle’s grill. The last few hours of that drive were blessedly easy, on dry pavement. Or so I thought. Except that the bitterly cold temperatures froze the slush solid, which blocked the air flow to the engine or whatever and the poor little vee-hickle almost overheated. At least that was what a rather irate livid Grandroobly told me when I got home. Temperature gauge? Who knew? I thought you just turned on the engine, shifted into first and drove. Yes, I have long since learned there is more to it than that and now I am being punished for that sin by the Ninja, which talks to me about every single blasted perceived slight. “Fill up my tires, you old bag.” “You better go get an oil change sometime in the next five years.” Whatever happened to a simple “service engine soon” light? I suspect Grandroobly is behind this, with the diabolical Engineer providing technical expertise.

And *then* there was the time that rain turned into ice that turned the I75 SUV Speedway into an ice rink and everybody was fishtailing around like crazy and traffic slowed to around 10 mph as we all struggled to keep going in a straight line. Eventually, as the freezing rain morphed into what they call “wintry mix” these days, the overall speed increased to about 35 and just south of Gaylord my poor overworked driver’s side windshield wiper totally utterly disintegrated. I stopped at a friendly old Amoco station that still sold something besides cigarettes and pop and one of the guys replaced it for me for the price of the new wiper. I eventually arrived home safely but I’ve blocked the last 110 miles of that trip. Mackinac Bridge? Did we go over a bridge? Say what?

Today. Even though there was no precipitation when I set foot outside early this morning, I knew the weather was going to take a turn for the worse. Whistling little gusts of wind made the few remaining leaves rattle ominously in the trees. Normally I would’ve ignored all of this. This is Michigan and this is what it does here and I didn’t have anyplace I *had* to go today. But Mouse was scheduled to drive back to school today. You can’t tell your adult children what to do even when you are paying their tuition but all of my own snow drives came to the forefront of my memory and, despite my best efforts to stay calm, I was anxious and apprehensive. When I heard “winter storm warning” on the radio at around nine AM, I grabbed Froggy and made him wake her up, gently suggesting the possibility of an earlier departure than is typical. I was relieved when she agreed and so, after a coffee at the Plum Market, we topped off her tank, then she got on the I94 18-wheel Slogway and I walked home. And yes, for anyone who cares, she did encounter some nasty stuff along the way but she made it safely.

It started snowing here later and has been snowing to beat the band ever since and by the time I got done walking slipping and slithering over to the Plum Market (yes, that was my second trip there today), I resembled a soggy raccoon-eyed abominable snowman. And I am currently being spammed by a beloved nonagenarian first-time cell-phone user. It’s okay. It’s reminiscent of the twilight zone but at least she’s trying. You go, girl.

And so it goes. G’night –KW. Work tomorrow. Hi ho!

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