Cold enough for ya?

I hate when people talk about the weather.  I live in Florida so everyone always talks about how hot it is.  I hate these people.  It’s August in Florida, of course it’s hot!  I don’t need these morons walking around in plaid shorts asking, “Is it hot enough for ya?”  Will someone please hit them with a brick?  So now I’m in Chicago in January and all I do is talk about the cold.  I’m watching for those bricks to come flying my way…

I got up this morning and watched the newscaster tell me to “enjoy the temperatures while I can”.

Now this intrigued me because it’s 19 degrees outside.

She continued to say that when the storm rolls in tonight it will go down to 3 degrees with a wind chill of -14.  She then told me that the wind chill will not go above zero for the next seven days.  Later this week we’ll get down to -30.

Thirty degrees below zero…  All I had to say to that was, “Fuck, it’s cold!”

And then I rolled over, curled up in the blankets and went back to sleep.

And so rather than bitch about the cold I’ll give you another story from the “Chris fucks up” file.  See the picture below?  That’s my rental car just a few hours after I brushed it off.  It has snowed constantly up here.

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Tonight we have what the news is calling, “blizzard conditions”.  I don’t think it’s all that bad, 4 maybe 5 inches of snow…  I’ve been here a month and every time a storm rolls through, the news treats it like a major blizzard and it only turns out to be a small amount of snow.  huh…  Anyway, I got out tonight and brushed off all the windows, warmed the engine and drove to a restaurant for dinner.  Now, I have been playing around, sliding the car all over the place in empty parking lots at 3am but I haven’t been caught doing that yet.  When I’m on the roads or when I’m out during normal hours, I am very careful driving in the snow and ice.

So when the cop pulled me over tonight I imagined that my license plate was written down from all the late night screwing around I’ve been doing.

While I was waiting for him to come to the door and I actually said, “I’ll bet he’s got SCMOD.  State County Municipal Offender Database.”  I am in Chicago after all, I had to use a “Blues Brothers” line…

The cop walks up and tells me that my headlights are covered with snow.  It’s a $130 fine.  I told him that I was very careful to wipe off the windows and mirrors before driving, I just forgot the lights.  When he saw my Florida driver’s license, he laughed and told me to be careful in the snow, no ticket.  He reminded me to wipe off the rear lights next time and he even wiped off the headlights for me.  I never had to get out of the car!  How cool was that cop?

So I had another run-in with the law and I was lucky this time because I really earned that ticket.  Maybe tonight I’ll take a break from playing “Rental car slip n’ slide”.  With all that fresh snow on the ground It’ll be hard to pass up.  Come on, you’d do it too.  By the way, cars that beep when they’re sliding out of control…  the beeping only adds to the stress of dealing with an already out of control car.  Bad idea.  One of these days I’ll grow up.  But as long as I have a rental car, I’m not betting it will happen any time soon.