This isn’t a competition, but if it were, the Canadians here would win hands down. Team Canada!!! More snowstorm-driving miles (older members) and kilometres (younger members) per capita than anywhere else in the world, except maybe Siberia.
It’s amusing to tell lurid stories of near-disasters on January roads to Californians who have never seen snow, watch their eyes get round, watch that ‘oh they’re exaggerating’ (we’re not) suspicion enter their eyes. But driving and flying and, indeed, walking down the damned street when it’s cold and icy and snowing sideways are no joke.
I’ve been known to, um, enhance a story, with the purest of motives: for better effect, to better entertain my listener. But not winter driving stories. You can’t exaggerated that shit, it’s too extreme already.
In some places, winter driving is more about torrential rain. That sucks to drive or fly or walk in, too. Everyone has had a time or two when the rain came down so heavily they’ve had to pull over, hope it’s just a cloudburst and that in a few minutes they’ll be able to see the front of their own car.
Bad storms are when, amongst other worries, windscreen-wiper anxiety sets in. It’s no fun to watch the driver-side wiper going flying off into the night. Always have a spare pair in the trunk. If the wiper motor dies, well, can’t help you there. Thank god for cell phones with GPS. “Yeah, hi, CAA?… um, I dunno, somewhere between Wawa and Kapuskasing… I think I saw the goose a while back…”.
The worst storm-stayed whilst flying story I’ve ever heard belongs, unfortunately, to Mr. Sierra. A business trip. Transferring planes in, I think, Pittsburgh. Huge snow storm going on. They landed safely, but then it took forever to get boarded on the next flight. But then! The plane is going through the de-icer! Hopes rise! Waiting… waiting… go through the de-icer a second time. Hopes sit hunkered down, afraid to move.
Those poor people sat in that plane, on the tarmac, for twelve solid hours. People were frantic to be let back into the airport, but “no, really, at least here you have somewhere to sit.”
You’d have had to sedate me.
“Ha! That’s nothing,” I hear you say. “Listen to this!”
Well, let’s hear it, then.
