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Get this: The county where my school is located is under a winter weather warning. "Accumulation of at least 1 to 1-1/2 inches of ice will form on trees, roads, and especially bridges and overpasses," they say. This supposed winter weather is predicted to begin just after noon tomorrow.

And when does Rayne leave for her LAST CLASS, during which she is to turn in a FINAL PROJECT?

Oh, about 12:45 p.m.!!!

And how long does it take Rayne to get to school?

Um...THIRTY MINUTES!!!!!

And how long does this class last?

From 1:30 p.m. until 2:45 p.m. :-|

I don't think I have to explain just how crappy this situation is. I mean, even if they cancel classes when the weather starts, I'll still be on the road for thirty minutes--and I speak from experience when I say that things get ugly real quick during icy weather.

Allow me to relay a story...

In January 2000, our area was hit hard by a winter storm that came seemingly out of nowhere. The weather people had said that there would be some icy conditions in the upstate, but that our area (at the worst) would see an ice/rain mix. So, I went to work as usual (as if I had another choice), got cozy in my cubicle (a.k.a. The Padded Cell), and was even able to enjoy an uneventful lunch.

However, after lunch things went downhill--and I'm not just talking about the everyday kind of downhill, where I would have those damn NY Yankee sales(wo)men screaming in my ear about how incompetent our shipping department is. No, no. I'm talking about the freaking bottom of the ice bucket falling out. One minute we were sitting there, going over purchase order disputes, and having "friendly" telephone fights with the salespeople. The next minute we're all glued to the front windows watching ice pellets accumulate in the parking lot and highway.

Not more than twenty minutes later, the plant manager comes out of the warehouse, flying through the customer service office on his little motor-buggy, shouting for everyone to get the hell out.

"G'on! Ev'rybody git on home! Mr. Dickface [the owner of the company] don't want nobody blamin' him for no accidents!"

We all left immediately, but just in those few short minutes, so much sleet had accumulated that it was like driving on little, tiny marbles. A co-worker and I ended up going the opposite way from all of the other plant traffic--I was following her--and we just barely missed getting into accidents several times on the way.

Within the next two hours, the sleet had turned to snow, and the snow had accumulated into drifts of over six inches. That may seem petty to what some places in this country see, but people in the South rarely see snow. And it's even more rare for it to accumulate that much.

In short, Southerners don't have a clue as to how one should function in this sort of weather. Everything practially comes to a stand-still!

I don't want to go through that again. I mean, snow is good--even the stand-still part. The really nasty stuff, like ice and sleet, are not.

So, I'm hoping that whatever is coming this way will hold off until AFTER I leave school tomorrow. Not only do I not want to get caught in it, I would rather not get caught in it while driving my dad's clunky old truck. He works second shift, so that means I get stuck driving the left-overs during potentially bad weather.

Yay.

Ugh. Why can't it just be nice, fluffy white stuff? I can handle snow. I happen to function quite nicely when it snows. Thank goodness I used to stay on road, come hell or high water (or, in this case...snow), when I was a teenager--otherwise I wouldn't be able to boast that right about now.

Ice, on the other hand, just plain sucks.

<< - >>

Save The Rayne! - 2004-12-27
Want some popcorn? - 2004-06-23
- - 2004-06-19
Pfft. - 2004-06-12
Wheehaa!! Going to see PoA! - 2004-06-02

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