I say to People in Saint Louis: Pretty bad snow, Tuesday, huh? Remember when it was 70 degrees last weekend? Crazy.
I say to People Everywhere Else: All of Saint Louis Almost DIED Tuesday! It was a 100-year blizzard! For some reason, CNN cared more about covering the Primaries than covering the near-death experiences of Everyone in Saint Louis!
Tuesday
4:30 am. Dog alerts me that it’s sleeting outside. “Crunchy sleet,” I think, “Good for traction.”
9:30 am. Mom and I drive to her physical therapist for a half-four session. On the way there it begins to snow, meaning I turn the corner at Ladue and Lindbergh and drive into a whiteout. “Blizzard conditions,” Mom intones ominously. I remember Mom’s cataracts probably mean it looks worse to her than it is.
10:00 am. We wade through the ankle-high snow that accumulated in the last half hour. Mom says, “Take Lindbergh, it will be safer.” (I pause as Saint Louisans laugh hollowly.)
10:01 am-12:15 pm. We drive twenty minutes north on Lindbergh for the next two hours.
First, I applied the brakes at the first stoplight. The car did not stop, instead the brakes just had their little ABS seizures while sliding across the 2 car lengths I kept in front of me. I noticed the Dynamic Stability Control light had not gone off.
“Mom, feel that vibration? That’s that Dynamic Stability Control we got,” I fibbed cheerfully. I pointed at where the light was supposed to be. “You just missed seeing the light,” I lied to my cataract-blind mother.
“Stop looking at that light. Watch the road.”
For a while there we crawled through the snow, to slow to even skid on the ice when we stopped. Then at Lindbergh and Saint Charles Rock Road we watched two cars try in vain to get up an icy hill. People tried to push; people almost died. The Pageant of Human Life unfolded before our eyes. Well, my eyes, Mom kept her eyes closed. We stayed in the car. I decided I would eat Mom if I had to. Eventually a Dept of Transportation truck showed up, and the driver pushed the two cars up the icy hill. Then he looked at me. “Just don’t stop,” he recommended. I put the Mini in first and gunned it.
I did feel a little self-conscious when it had been four minutes of me gunning it up a twelve-foot incline, but I didn’t stop, and I made it over the hill.
And given that every snowplow in Saint Louis was probably stuck behind me, and the two stuck cars in front had long gone, I found myself as the lone car on Lindbergh. Lindbergh was white, the air was white, the horizon was white. It was a whiteout and I could not see. I had to turn on the GPS and drive the car like I was in a video game. I stared at the tiny screen and kept the little blue arrow positioned over the yellow alleged Lindbergh line.
Mom (again, blind) convinced me to stay on Lindbergh (allegedly) because then we’d hit the 100 foot snow-free tunnel under the airport.
Eventually (12:15 pm) we get back to Mom’s. I called Gary to warn him to stay at work.
12:16 pm. Gary leaves work.
Every fifteen minutes Gary calls to complain about the lack of plows and the BASTARDS who are blocking the ramps and the injustice that makes people go East on Page and then backtrack West on Page and THINK they can get in front of him unfairly and No they WILL NOT be allowed in Front Of Him. Or, to summarize: Bastards.
Oh, and as a coda: The Cataract Surgery Center called to say they can’t do Mom’s surgery the next day, because her breathing needs the close monitoring you’d get at a hospital. Bah.
Postscript: Gary got home at 5:30 pm. I stayed at Mom’s and then got home at 9:30 pm.
So that was my Winter Storm Story.
17 responses to “In Which I Share my Winter Storm Story”
Holy Craptacular snowfall, Batman! How did you have a blizzard with white out conditions and we here in KC got NOTHING? How bizarre. I think maybe it drizzled a little, but mostly just cold. Seriously, the weather in the midwest this year needs a giant Prozac. Sunday afternoon we went from 70 degrees to about 30 in the course of two hours.But thank God for GPS, huh?
Hee! I love the timeline for Gary leaving work – that is exactly what my husband would do!! 🙂
What is wrong with men that they must immediately do the exact opposite of whatever we tell them FOR THEIR OWN GOOD!
I had to laugh at the Gary timeline. I did the same stupid thing. My boss said I could leave at noon “if you want to but it might be better to leave later”. Well, of course I wanted to leave as soon as possible. My 40 minute commute took 3 hours and 15 minutes. I have to say, tho, that 141 looked absolutely lovely. White road, white sky, all the pretty red lights that I didn’t bother to stop at. I think there are still identions on my steering wheel from my maniacal grip.
Yikes! I never even guessed you were having so much fun there! Thank God I moved to the desert…..a wind storm is the worst we’ve seen of late. I surely don’t miss Denver and all of the fun they have with the snow. I think 35 years was plenty of punishment!
Greetings!My name is Sarah Edwards, and I am an Aspie (a.k.a. I have Asperger’s Syndrome) and I am a medical student.I am working with another medical student, Sara Dungavell, on an ethics project about the meaning of words. We are working under the supervision of an ethicist named Dr. Jeff Nisker. Sara and I noticed that the common meanings of the words, “human”, “fully-functional” and “normal”, as well as how the words related to each other, get used to keep people on the Spectrum separate from mainstream society. We think in part it is because the definitions come from people outside the community. We want to know how people within or associated with the Spectrum define these words for themselves, so we are asking some bloggers who are part of the Spectrum community if they would like to give us their own definitions. We found your blog, and that’s why we are e-mailing you and several other bloggers.Once we’ve gathered these new definitions, we plan on analyzing them for common themes about what “normal”, “human”, and “fully-functional” mean and how they are related to each other. We plan on presenting these definitions and analyses to other medical students and the academic community to try and get them thinking about people on the Spectrum differently. Attached to this email is a letter of information that explains what the project is about again, and then at the end it asks for your definitions of “normal”, “human” and “fully-functional”. Okay so obviously this is not the actual email but should you wish to participate please email me and I will send the actual email on.Please read the letter, and then if you want to help us by being part of the research, email us back your definitions and any comments you might have about them. There are no right answers, please just tell us what your definitions are of these words and what they mean to you. Also if you know anyone else who might want to contribute please feel free to email this letter to them too. Feel free to answer beyond the scope of the definitions if you wish or to answer only one or two of the definitions. If you have any questions, or if you’d like to know more about what we are researching, please email me and ask them. Thank you,Sarah EdwardsM.D. Class of 2010Schulich School of Medicine and DentistryThe University of Western Ontariosedwards2010@meds.uwo.ca
Jesus. Thats a lot of snow. Suddenly I love the thunderstorms.Also, thank you for being outraged at the ponytail bitch. I was too, but I felt like I was overreacting.
First of all… what the heck?OK, so back to your regularly scheduled blog. It was crazy. My husband didn’t have to work since the school he was scheduled to work with closed. We gave our daughter the choice to stay home instead of going to preschool. Any other day she’d choose home. She chose school.9:30. I’m sitting in the back of a training class not really caring what’s happening since I’m leaving the company in 3 days. So I watch the snow plow go up and down the aisles of the parking lot. 30 seconds after it finishes each aisle, that aisle is snow-covered again.10:00. I call my husband and tell him to get our daughter NOW before it gets worse. He wonders why. There’s no snow at our house. He waits until there is snow, of course.4:30. I finally leave. After clearing 9″ off my car and discovering that the antenna is broken from the weight of the snow, I have a relatively easy drive home. I stop at the grocery store and buy ricotta cheese and ice cream, but no bread or milk. Apparently I pass Gary, because I was still home before 5:30.
Hi,I have an MS Blogger Project underway over at my place. Please visit MS Awareness, Blogging Friends, and a little Link Love to join in.Thanks,Lisa
Jenny – Yeah, it squatted right over StL.Annie – And everyone elses, too.Candy – Men have testosterone that warps their thinking. Plus, the so don’t want to be whipped.KC – I made Gary give me a backrub when I got home. I was that tense. And he did it.Judith – Denver to the desert! That’ll clear up your sinuses.Sarah – Well, I said yes and THEN I researched “Spectrum Community.” Can I still participate even though I not autistic?Katie – The weatherman got all excited about calling it “thundersnow.”Caroline – You were one of the bastards on Page. He couldn’t get from 270 to Page because someone was stuck on the ramp.Lisa – Hi Lisa! I was just at your site last night.
You are positively spamagnetic!It sucked here too. Cars were sliding off the road at an alarming rate. I ran my one errand then mocked the drivers as the slid past my drivway.
Sara:I am not autistic so this part confused me:”Okay so obviously this is not the actual email but should you wish to participate please email me and I will send the actual email on.”If it is not the actual email how does one email you to get the actual email?Bear with me on this, I am not real bright but I can learn.
Want to hear my Winter Storm Story? I walked the dog at 8am and it was thundersnowing. I got home, attempted to clean off my car during the thundersnow and then went inside and saw a huge line of heavy snow headed this way. Called and told my disbelieving boss that I was not coming in (Apparently it wasn’t snowing downtown yet) and spent the rest of the day sitting on the couch and knitting.Sadly, that means I’m the only person at work who doesn’t have a “It took me x hours to get home” story.
That hilly stretch was Whitehall. (I sensed it with my sensitive whiskers.)You are a good driver.Helen Keller
Zayrina – Did you see the comment that went something like this: “ijh asdm fl erg gjtr?” I deleted that. No idea how it got through. And, when you comment, you will notice the line that says, “Email Address: (Not displayed with comment.)” For the “ijh” commenter the email was “kjh@ufdsf.com.”Amy in StL – Man. Your story makes up in wisdom what it lacks in drama.The Most Esteemed Queen Mother – Yes, you are right! As always.
Excuse me while I laugh… Here in Iowa that’s been pretty much a weekly thing.
Sue – Mom being right? That’s an every day thing here. Oh, you mean the snow.