Soon, I will post a picture of my windshield scraper. Why would you do that, my ever watchful and thoughtful readers might ask. Why post a picture of your windshield scraper? What could that have to do with Michigan winters being a blight on our collective soul?
Well, kids, (as Mr. Sleeve used to say), lemme tell ya:
The ice on my windshield broke my scraper this morning.
Yeah, that's right.
I have one of thos long-handled types with the snow brush mounted on the back. Like these:
They're strong, reliable, and pretty indestructible. Like everyone else in the universe, I keep in under the seat of my car, pull it out a couple times a year, and forget about it utterly for all the warm months. Well, I'm not planning on forgetting this any time soon.
Wednesday is the day I'm assigned to show up early and open the building for the students at 7:30 a.m. (Inhuman, I know.) So I got up at 6:30, jumped in the shower, dressed, and then ran outside to start the car and warm it up a little. I turned the rear defroster on and put the front heater on defrost at full-blast. Then I ran back inside, gathered up breakfast and lunch, kissed everyone goodbye, and went out to the car. I didn't expect five minutes to do too much but I thought it might loosen things up a bit. I also didn't expect the snow and ice on my car to be so frozen and crusty that it was like digging through Texas hardpan or Canadian permafrost. I actually had to jab at the outer layer of snow just to get through to the ice on the glass below. Once there, I had to use both hands and lean into it to make headway.
My students get up pretty early to catch a series of cold, dirty buses to get to school on time. Many of them arrive at or even before 7:30 and, if someone's not there to let them in, they have to stand in the freezing cold.
So I'm hurrying, right? Furiously chipping away at the ice and snow from the hoary netherworld of Beelzebub, the very icebox of Satan, and suddenly there's a snap and I watch a piece of black something or other go somersaulting off into the snow. I look at the little, black chunk on the ground and then at my scraper and realize it actually broke. Aren't these things designed to handle exactly this sort of thing? I mean, isn't this kind of duty what an ice scraper is for? Does it make any sense that an industrial designer would show the prototype to his boss and say, "Yeah, it works great -- except when it's cold and the ice is hard. Then it might break."
I was in a hurry so I didn't let this minor setback deter me. I still had 2/3 of a scraper and I was going to get results. I kept chipping and working for another twenty seconds and then another snap, another acrobatic piece of black plastic vaulting through the air.
Half a scraper now.
I realize it was structurally unsound by this point and that I was putting undue pressure on the poor thing and that it wasn't long for this world. But, in addition to being on the verge of being late, did I mention that it was also bitterly cold outside? Yeah, the arctic wilderness on my car and the shattered ice-chipping tool probably suggest that -- but just in case, I want to be clear: It. Was. Stinking. Cold. So, I didn't want to stop. I wanted to get the windshield clear and get in the car and build a small fire in the passenger seat using gum wrappers and mix tape cassettes from the glove compartment. (They've got to be good for something.)
So I kept at it for another couple of seconds, still only successfully clearing about half of the windshield, and then the final snap came. The location of the original, broad, black wedge looked like a hillbilly with a predilection for Mountain Dew and Snickers bars -- one tooth left.
Anyway, I gave up. I tossed the thing aside and rummaged through our other car for our spare scraper. I found it, finished the job, got on the road, and got here right at 7:30. I'm warm and toasty now but still sort of in shock over just how utterly evil and uncool Michigan winters are. Join me in cursing it, my friends.
3 comments:
All right, my brother, I will commiserate. And I will share my tale of woe concerning this Idaho winter.
I work at the airport, as you know, renting cars. The airport is in the middle of a gigantic field, near the Snake River, so that all the humidity, cold, wind, and fog are continually dogpiling our parking lot.
I usually, on evil weather days, park my car in our shop so that when I leave (I work nights and I get off work at midnight-ish) my car is room temperature and no scraping/warming up period is necessary. I consider this a wonderful luxury.
In January (generally considered to be the crap-crap-crappiest month of he winter) we had one day where the high was four degrees. And, of course, since I'm not the brightest bulb on the porch, this night I forgot to put my car in the shop. It was -11 when I closed.
Oddly enough, it was also foggy, and that's unusual to have that degree of cold and still have fog.
But there it was.
Frozen to my car.
Firstly, I couldnt get my door open. It had frozen shut. A thick layer of frozen fog enveloped my entire car. So I pushed and pulled and kicked and cursed and cajoled and finally it opened.
When I turned the key my engine shrieked like Celine Dion if you jabbed a pin in her bum.
So I grab my scraper and get to work. After about a minute, I've managed to scrape about a nickel-sized hole in the drivers side window and SNAP the entire blade part of the scraper comes off and rattles downward beneath my wiper into that netherworld twixt hood and windshield.
I was, you understand, unhappy with this development.
Luckily for me, I went to the dirty rental car next to me and stole the Hertz ice scraper.
Back to work.
It was probably 15 minutes of scraping before I felt like I could be safe driving.
By the time I got home, my car had been running for half an hour and it still wasn't warm.
Why don't I live in Santa Barbara?
Gave me a laugh attack to picture you in the throws of a deteriorating ice scraper. Not funny, I know, but your description made me laugh til I cried.
Looks like you'd better buy a new scraper with the weather forecast!
Love, Mom
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