Ice

I had to get up early this morning, like before-sun-is-up early. Like punch-yourself-in-the-face early. Like fall-asleep-standing-up-in-the-shower early. Now, I knew that I was going to do this. I had thought ahead for once, and had given myself a mental pat on the back for seeing future problems and waylaying them.

It had been a southern snow day, which generally means a few inches of snow and clear roads on which not one stinking person knows how to drive. My brilliant idea was this: get a jump on the ice situation by brushing off all the snow the night before, so that when I came out the next morning my car would be pristine and I would be able to just jump in and take off down the road.

As with so many future plans, it didn't exactly work out as planned.

I stumbled out onto the icy sidewalk and looked with pride at my slick, shiny car... completely sans-snow. Woot. As I slid over the sidewalk, I hit the button in my pocket which unlocked the driver's side door. I pulled open the door. Correction: I tried to open the door. As I pulled, I realized that my journey was going to be delayed... quite delayed. After a stubbornly resistant wrenching, the half-inch of crystal-clear ice shattered from around the door frame with a loud crack, coating the inside of my car with large shards. Shards of ice and muttered choice words.

There are times in life where a new lesson is learned instantly. These lessons typically follow failure.



As I'm sure many of you have known (and have judged me for the last few paragraphs), it's not always the best idea to remove snow from your vehicle, even if you think it may save time in the long run. Or to give yourself something to do on long snow days. Because, as I learned in approximately three microseconds, it is WAY harder to remove ice from the surface of glass than it is from the surface of six inches of snow. Snow brushes away easily... glass does not. Well, it does if you break it. But it's preferable to break snow than your windshield.

Twenty minutes later, having started my car, cranked the heat and engaged any sort of thermal-related function in my Focus, I managed to chip away a weakness in the solid sheet of what might as well have been iron.

How like life.