Thursday, January 5, 2012

Let It Not Snow, Ever

It's now well into January, and this winter season has only seen one decent snowstorm, and that was back in October. I'm conflicted on how I feel about this, because at my best I tolerate snow. While I appreciate the beauty of a white Christmas, I've had enough white Easters back in Minnesota that I can do with a few holidays remaining snowless. Still, in the spirit of seasonal cheer, I thought I'd share some snow-themed anecdotes, because isn't that just adorable.

-One weekend afternoon during my senior year of high school, my best friend and I were out about town, adventuring, as was usually the case that year. On this particular day, she needed to prepare for and complete a photo shoot she needed to do for her Photography class, using me as a model. Don't be too impressed, I was in jeans and a sweatshirt.

Weirdly enough, I'm actually wearing that same sweatshirt right now. I didn't even plan that.


The spot where she wanted to shoot was at a local park. Now, it had snowed quite a bit the night before, as it does in the Midwest seven months out of the year. While the streets had of course already been cleared by the well-practiced Minnesotan plows, the park's parking lot had not been. I don't know what I was thinking, or if I was just outrageously over-confident, but I thought my little car could manage to drive over the drift by the entrance and just park on the snow, no problem. This was sadly not actually the case.

My car ended up being completely and totally stuck in the snow. To add to the ridiculousness of this situation, my friend and I quickly discovered someone else was in the area taking pictures. He, however, was taking pictures of us. So that was a bit unnerving. After laughing at my stupidity for longer than I'm proud of, I decided to call my friend, who lived close by, to come meet us with a shovel. After no doubt rolling his eyes in a "Why am I not even surprised Sara did this" kind of way, he came and, with the aid of some helpful passers-by dug me out of the snow. Following this, I easily parked in the completely clear parking lot of the church next to the park.

-A few years before that incident, when I was 15, I was just learning to drive. One afternoon, my dad let me drive home from somewhere, presumably somewhere close to our house. My sense of direction didn't really develop until I was driving myself places and so it absolutely needed to if I was going to survive. While this car was not brand new at this point, it was definitely closer to new than not. And on this particular afternoon it was snowing quite fiercely, and the plows had not gotten to all the streets yet. I, quite understandably I think, took the easiest route home (there were about twelve), which involved one quite long, windy, hilly road. Between driving my dad's car and the snow falling heavily, I was close to a heart attack already. Then I reached a rather steep upward length of road, and needed to really step on the gas to make it up. When the road leveled out, I started spinning out. For those of you who don't drive, or only drive in sub-Saharan places where snow doesn't fall, you will never know the intense panic that accompanies driving a sliding car on snow. To my young heart, this was truly the end. While I did my best to not actually die, and recovered quite well, the car did end up partially in a snowbank, a few feet from a tree, to top it all off.
And what was my dad doing while all of this was happening and I was fearing for my life?
The jerk was just sitting in the passenger seat, laughing his head off.
Hilarious.

-Around that same time, my sister was looking for possible colleges that would most help her succeed in the theater business. (HA that was joke. "Succeed in theater." LAWL. As if.) One of the schools she was looking into was in the city of Chicago, and one weekend in the winter my sister, mom, and I took a trip down there so she could see the school and interview for acceptance. While my sister was presenting her portfolio to what I can only assume was a group of people wearing various colors of berets, my mom and I went searching for a Dunkin Donuts we knew was nearby. This was another instance where it had just snowed the night before, and I was not prepared for this. I thought I would be fine trudging through blocks and blocks of snowy Chicago wearing thin socks and thinner canvas shoes. After three streets, I was uncomfortable. After ten streets, I was cold. After fifteen, I was angry with everything. After twenty, I lost the ability to feel, both physically and emotionally. By the time we arrived at the Dunkin Donuts, my feet were soaked as if I had just dunked them in a pool of ice water, and then kept them in there for ten minutes, for some reason. I immediately sat down at a table, and in full view of the other customers, proceeded to take off my shoes and socks and massage my bare feet in public.
Another strong moment for me.

Snow's ok, I guess. But it can also be kind of a dick.


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