Idiot of the Day

This year has been a cold and snowy winter for us.  In our 12+ years in the East we've never seen snow stay on the ground this long and it's getting kind of old.  The snow has been on the ground so long now that it has ceased to be novel or lovely anymore.  It's blackened with dirt and hardened into solid ice--it is the snow of my Minnesotan childhood.

 So when Glen and I were married in the dead of winter16 years ago, Glen was convinced that the rumors of Minnesota winters were all exaggeration.  He was a Colorado boy and he knew all about cold.  Or so he thought.  The week we were in Minnesota for our wedding reception the temps dipped down to the -20°s, which is just about cold enough that we Minnesotans start wearing gloves.  He was snow balled into humility in just 2 short minutes out in that bitter cold.  Of course I used this experience a mere week into our marriage as an opportunity to introduce Glen to the wife knows all way of thinking. 

I'd like to say that in the 18 years I've lived away from the frozen tundra that I've kept my penchant for cold weather tolerance, but for anyone who's seen the way I shiver through church on Sundays they would know that it's a lie.  There is one exception to my complete reversion to winter weather wimpiness though--driving! Normally intelligent people turn into complete idiots when they drive in the snow.  I, however, pride myself on my non-idiocy and love to harshly criticize anyone less skilled than myself.   Everyone. 

Two feet of snow falls and I don't bat an eyelash.  I know how to use the appropriate amount of caution and other than the 10 seconds I got stuck in the post office parking lot when one of the idiot sorts pulled out in front of me and caused me to swerve, I never got stuck once. 

So then almost an entire month after the last significant snowfall,   I come around a tight corner to turn onto a major highway and this happens....

Yep.  I've lost my driving skills too.  And in a BIG way.  There I was stuck as stuck gets jutting out onto oncoming traffic on a busy highway.   Cars were swerving.  Trucks blaring their horns.  People yelling out the windows.

I was scared out of my mind.     

Thankfully, Good Samaritans were out in force that day.  Three carfuls of people immediately stopped to lend their assistance.  Five guys were standing on the highway risking their own safety to push me back onto solid  ground and when I didn't budge, one of them ran home and got their truck to pull me out.  In all, the whole experience took a mere ten minutes, but it was ten minutes that renewed my faith in the good-heartedness of people. 

Turns out the only idiot around here is the one typing this post.  

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