on ice and dying
As I said in a previous post, I do not watch the news or stay up on local weather. Because of this, national emergencies can just sort of creep up onto you without you even realizing it.
When I woke up this morning and started to walk to school I noticed that the entire world was covered in ice. Apparently I had been freezing rain all night, leaving nothing but a thick sheet of ice to manage. One thing you should also know, ice is slippery. No, I know what you’re thinking. But it’s true. My shoes also have about 0 traction. I mean, don’t get me wrong, they look like they have a lot of traction but it is really just a well designed illusion to make buyers fail at life. I bought them for the sole reason that my sneakers were not the best for the winter weather, so I picked something out that looked like it could handle the winter season. You can imagine my surprise the first time I fell on my ass (yeah… first time…). Also, they tend to start smelling when they get wet, which is not particularly desirable for a pair of winter foot wear. Awkwardness abounds.
Even though this isn’t a story about my shoes, this is a story about the national emergency that arrived under my nose, this fact is only made worse now that you know about my little shoe problem. Imagine hating your shoes for their inability to handle even the slipping power to powdered snow, and you wake up to an ice covered world. I bet you would curse under your breath.
So I was walking to school, mostly sticking to tractable grass and staying off the side-walks of death. By the time I got to school I realized that my last five inches were going to be the hardest of all. The door, you see, is surrounded by the slightest of steeps. Given the current situation this made the door harder to get to than Everest’s summit. I think it took me like ten minutes to get to that door. Every time I got close I would either start slipping and my struggle to keep upright would plummet me back to the bottom, or the wind would push me off. The wind was blowing about 20 miles per hour, and I could literally stand still with my arms out stretched in the parking lot and have these gusts push me around like a sail boat.
And you know what? All my participants showed up. On a Saturday… In death weather… They really appreciate the values of science I suppose.
It gets worse though, because I guess while I was running participants the entire city (except the school, it seems) lost power. I went into the candle-lit store and realized that I had no food, fresh water, flashlights, and all I had was 4 dollars in my wallet with my check book was back in my lab for what ever reason.
I thought I was saved when the power at the ace hardware store was up and accepting credit cards, but when I was about to ring up the sale, their power crashed. They announced that they could now only accept cash and check while I broken heartedly brought my merchandise back… in the dark… holding a sealed flash light. I felt like shaking my hands in the air and muttering “what? Are you kidding me? I almost had light”
I realized the only was I would be able to be warm or entertain myself was to make my way back to school. So I trotted back, passing broken tree limbs and dead houses while listening to the ever present sirens. Kind of surreal in a post-apocalyptic sort of way. I was especially sobered up when a tree branch the size of a small elephant was blocking my path. I looked up and realized I had been walking under these huge branches the entire time. There is no reason that one should fall onto empty ground and not onto me. Of course, later I started giggling when I saw branch particularly heavy with ice dangling over a brand new sports car. If I had a camera I would have taken a before and after photo for the record books.
It’s funny though. The only thing I can think to do is to get very very drunk. I haven’t gotten drunk in a long time, and yet as soon as the sky starts to cloud over, and the power goes out, I feel like doing the most irresponsible thing I can think of. It’s like “hey, your power is out, a tree branch might crush you, and you have no light scource, I guess the only thing to do is get drunk. Oh well.”
So yeah, now that my cell phone has been recharged, my check book is in hand, I have to leave the safe confines of my lab make my way back into that world to search for food. If I don’t make it to morning, Kai can have my records, Devon can get my ipod, and James can take his x-box back.
When I woke up this morning and started to walk to school I noticed that the entire world was covered in ice. Apparently I had been freezing rain all night, leaving nothing but a thick sheet of ice to manage. One thing you should also know, ice is slippery. No, I know what you’re thinking. But it’s true. My shoes also have about 0 traction. I mean, don’t get me wrong, they look like they have a lot of traction but it is really just a well designed illusion to make buyers fail at life. I bought them for the sole reason that my sneakers were not the best for the winter weather, so I picked something out that looked like it could handle the winter season. You can imagine my surprise the first time I fell on my ass (yeah… first time…). Also, they tend to start smelling when they get wet, which is not particularly desirable for a pair of winter foot wear. Awkwardness abounds.
Even though this isn’t a story about my shoes, this is a story about the national emergency that arrived under my nose, this fact is only made worse now that you know about my little shoe problem. Imagine hating your shoes for their inability to handle even the slipping power to powdered snow, and you wake up to an ice covered world. I bet you would curse under your breath.
So I was walking to school, mostly sticking to tractable grass and staying off the side-walks of death. By the time I got to school I realized that my last five inches were going to be the hardest of all. The door, you see, is surrounded by the slightest of steeps. Given the current situation this made the door harder to get to than Everest’s summit. I think it took me like ten minutes to get to that door. Every time I got close I would either start slipping and my struggle to keep upright would plummet me back to the bottom, or the wind would push me off. The wind was blowing about 20 miles per hour, and I could literally stand still with my arms out stretched in the parking lot and have these gusts push me around like a sail boat.
And you know what? All my participants showed up. On a Saturday… In death weather… They really appreciate the values of science I suppose.
It gets worse though, because I guess while I was running participants the entire city (except the school, it seems) lost power. I went into the candle-lit store and realized that I had no food, fresh water, flashlights, and all I had was 4 dollars in my wallet with my check book was back in my lab for what ever reason.
I thought I was saved when the power at the ace hardware store was up and accepting credit cards, but when I was about to ring up the sale, their power crashed. They announced that they could now only accept cash and check while I broken heartedly brought my merchandise back… in the dark… holding a sealed flash light. I felt like shaking my hands in the air and muttering “what? Are you kidding me? I almost had light”
I realized the only was I would be able to be warm or entertain myself was to make my way back to school. So I trotted back, passing broken tree limbs and dead houses while listening to the ever present sirens. Kind of surreal in a post-apocalyptic sort of way. I was especially sobered up when a tree branch the size of a small elephant was blocking my path. I looked up and realized I had been walking under these huge branches the entire time. There is no reason that one should fall onto empty ground and not onto me. Of course, later I started giggling when I saw branch particularly heavy with ice dangling over a brand new sports car. If I had a camera I would have taken a before and after photo for the record books.
It’s funny though. The only thing I can think to do is to get very very drunk. I haven’t gotten drunk in a long time, and yet as soon as the sky starts to cloud over, and the power goes out, I feel like doing the most irresponsible thing I can think of. It’s like “hey, your power is out, a tree branch might crush you, and you have no light scource, I guess the only thing to do is get drunk. Oh well.”
So yeah, now that my cell phone has been recharged, my check book is in hand, I have to leave the safe confines of my lab make my way back into that world to search for food. If I don’t make it to morning, Kai can have my records, Devon can get my ipod, and James can take his x-box back.