When I was younger, I loved snow. I remember one November like 12 flakes fell from the sky and I sat and watched them through our living room window for 30 minutes, praying that it accumulated. At one point everyone in my family walked through to dash my hopes, my mom warmly saying, "This won't be much, but we're not even to winter yet!" and my brother, of course, saying something like, "It's not going to stick, numbnuts."
A sad part about growing up is that once you have to get places snow becomes less of a playful ally and more a terrible foe. When I was six, the fact that snow stopped school busses from running was AMAZING. Once I had a car, though, old friend snow was suddenly the dick who made roads miserable and kept me from driving 65 in 45-mile-an-hour speed zones on the back, country roads to school.
When I moved to Chicago, it got even worse. As a kid, the snow blanked the rural, Illinois countryside in this delicate, pretty sheet of white. In Chicago, it sheets for about 25 minutes, then you get plows, dogs, and shovelers making the snow turn all different shades of brown, black and yellow. At intersections, it's gone completely and replaced by a miserable ice bog on each corner. Even in boots, you'll get some real nice ice/water sludge pouring making your socks feel reaaaallllll wet.
Needless to say, this past week when a steady flow of white flakes was falling outside my window and the winter storm warning lit up my phone, my childlike wonder was replaced with obnoxious adult pragmatism.
"How will I get out of my parking lot…"
I actively tried to enjoy it, even making a pact with myself that I wouldn't drive until things were clear, so I wouldn't have that impending stress in the back of my mind.
Then, about 10 pm the night of the winter storm, I got a message from our parking lot board president) (I feel like a whole blog needs to be dedicated to the fact that my parking lot has a president. …Another time.) God bless him for dealing with all the snow and parking lot issues (There are a surprising number. Everything breaks like always – gates, keys, paint fades; our parking lot is a diva.) He let us know that there was so much snow that the plow couldn't even properly get into our parking lot.
"Sorry, but everyone will have to clear their cars so we can get all the snow from the lot. Please be out by 11am Monday morning."
Usually, I get up about 5:30 and go to the gym in my car, so I braced myself and decided I'd get up at my usual time and just… see what happened. I knew there was going to be time stuck and spin outs, so I figured the earlier I could try to get out, the better.
The next morning, I rolled out of bed, put on layers and layers, and headed out to my car. When I got to the lot, I realized I was super lucky, because the cars on the south side of the lot were NOT getting out. One poor Honda was surrounded by 3 feet of snow on all sides.
Shmu 2 (my beloved Buick) had a foot-high mound blocking her in, but there was a good chance I'd get out.
One of the reasons I was worried about getting Shmu out was because… she's a city lady. My old car Shmu 1 (may she rest forever in the car park in the sky), was a beat-up country gal. She survived 10 years in the city with no help from me. She was towed. She survived Snowmageddon. I think I got her oil changed every 3 years. (She did try to kill me once, which you can check out here.) That Shmu you could put in drive and she'd blast through a snowdrift without a sweat. I honestly think the Fast & Furious movies were inspired by her.
Shmu 2, despite being cute and modern (and still a Buick), just doesn't have what her predecessor had. There will be rain on the pavement and she'll slip. Shmu 1 tamed typhoons.
With these expectations, I knew it wouldn't be easy to get out. But I was prepared for it.
At first, the adventure was very controlled, and I behaved like an adult. I used my scraper and my hands to dig out a trail from Shmu's spot to the main gate.
I'd get in, put it in drive, then switch to reverse. I'd get out of the car and dig some more.
"Just a little more, we got this!"
There were about 5 back and forths just to get out of my spot. I was sweating profusely, and my adult patience was really being tested.
Another fun thing about Shmu 2 is that she has a leak in her windshield. Basically, this means that every morning I hop inside of her, there is frost on the INSIDE of the car. I took her in for an oil change and after 3 hours of oil changing, they were like "Oh, and we can fix that windshield for … uuuhhhh… $1000 dollars." That sounded made up, so I opted to scrape inside ice out of my car for the duration of the winter. Remember I won't even spend $15 on pillows, so $1000 on a windshield you only need for 8 months out of the year? FAT CHANCE.
But I was severely regretting that decision as my heater struggled to clear the inside AND outside ice and I was sweating and causing more condensation to form in the car as I jumped in and out of the car. Add to this, the sound of blasting heat and Taylor Swift, and … it was a MOOD.
So, I get out of my spot, patience trashed, and pull up to the main gate. I peer over my steering wheel and see a full-on snowbank on the outside of the gate. Like, a foot of snow on either side, no matter whether turning right or left.
Adult Tedd couldn't come to the phone at this moment because he was dead. I threw the car in Drive and just punched it in hopes to Vin Diesel out of the lot and blast onto the road.
Weirdly, this didn't work out. Shmu 2 got one wheel in snow and crumpled like a handful of toilet paper.
This time, rather than calmly exiting my car and scooping snow out of the way, I jumped out, heat and T Swift blasting out of the door behind me and started shoveling at my tires like a dog burying a bone. When I'd get tired of shoveling, I'd just kind slap my ice scraper at the tires in hope of knocking some snow out of the way.
I alternated between this and Vin Dieseliing to get out. Vin Dieseling in this context meant throwing the car in forward and reverse, just hoping that I'd rock out of the snow ditch I was in.
Eventually, Shmu's tires pushed and I jumped forward, the front two tires on the paved street. The back tires were still stuck. I was in full Diesel mode, and for some reason, in my head, I was like, "There is no f^&*ing way I'm getting out of this car again. WE BLASTING THROUGH, BABY!
And, believe it or not, it worked. Shmu 2 found her power and we rocked out of the snowbank and into the street.
I sat in disbelief for a moment, my face covered in sweat, my inside windshield half-full of ice, Taylor Swift softly crooning about the woods in the background.
I had done it.
It wasn't quite the wonder and hope of staring at the falling snow as I was a kid, but I did feel the raw unbridled Fast & Furious power that one can only feel as an adult faced with a mild inconvenience.
Taylor had to go for the rest of the 7-minute ride to the gym. I had to put on something for both me and Shmu and our victory. "Bad Girls" seemed like the perfect anthem. Needless to say, we're both ready for the next snow.