Life in a Wintry Mix.

Last night, the area was hit with what the faux-expert imbeciles we know as "weatherpeople" call a "wintry mix." What it consists of is snow, ice, sleet, freezing rain and kicks in the head with a steel-toed boot. It also comes with a heaping helping of brain-loss from every driver on the road. Suddenly, it's like no one behind the wheel ever took a driving lesson in their life. I really think that driving instructors should take the time to teach people how to drive in bad weather. If you can't pass the "wintry mix" driving portion of the test at the DMV, then hand over the keys and get your dumb ass back to driving school, schmuck.

My PT Cruiser has 93,000 miles on it, and frankly, I doubt if it will make it to 100,000. What with the vigorous commute everyday, I really think she's trying to tell me through osmosis that it's time to pull the plug. "Just stop the nonsense, Steve, and put me out of my misery. Why are you doing this to me? What did I do to you, other than provide a means of getting where you need to be...Damn you!" But she muddled through the slushy mess last evening at two miles an hour, and that was in the good spots. It was like I got the extended DVD edition of my commute. Usually 45 minutes, it was expanded to the complete two hour-45 minute director's cut, complete with deleted material and never-before-seen footage. Oh, and plenty of bloopers. If there was a bright side to the whole evening's festivities, it was that I wasn't on the other side of the road, where a tractor trailer was jackknifed across the highway, blocking all the lanes, with traffic at a complete standstill for miles. Nice going, good buddy. Should've put away the Carmen Electra hand-puppet and worried about driving instead. Of course, there was the whole rubberneckin' thing happening on my side of the road, but since traffic was back up anyway, it just made the whole thing more laughable.

So, how does one keep sane when puttering along, while the heavens spew the icy diarrhea down upon the area? Well, here's a quick diary of my commute:

Hour One was just dread. Okay, not that I had anything to do on this particular evening, except make some dinner, chat on the phone, go over some papers from class, watch Family Guy, throw a load of laundry into the wash, and pee, but there's nothing on that list that says sit in my car and wait for some jackass to hit me from behind because he doesn't understand the phrase "safe distance." I have the news channel on the radio, until I get tired of hearing about the traffic that I'm sitting in and the shitty weather all over. Why do I need weather updates from people on the scene in other parts of the area? It's a crappy night wherever you are. There. Report done, move onto the more pleasant shooting, robbery and extortion stories. So I put on a CD, but I don't feel like singing yet. I did yell a couple times. I curse at all the people around me and want to know what the hell makes them think they're allowed on my road to home. Stupid bastards. Oh yeah, and I have to pee, and it's getting worse with each press of the brake pedal.

Hour Two. Slowly, clarity takes over. I'm moving toward the light. I begin singing whatever I'm playing on the CD. Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Bobby Darin, Elvis, William Shatner. It doesn't matter. My mind has become a sloppy bowl of tapioca pudding. All I'm seeing are red brake lights and Jesus. I begin to laugh at the senselessness of it all. The utter insanity. I throw on Amy Winehouse, hoping some talented, yet coked-up wacko's cool music will bring me back to earth. It doesn't. And I still have to pee. I'm tasting uric acid at this point. And then, my low gas light dings on.

The final 45 minutes. My mother calls. I don't answer. I can't. My one hand is on the steering wheel, the other is on my crotch. If I move one, I crash. If I move the other, I pee myself. My mother has this uncanny ability to know exactly when the absolute worst time to call is, and she never fails. I've gone through most of the CDs in my car. I'm back to the weather reports and traffic updates. There is now traffic where there aren't even streets or roads. There is traffic going up the sides of buildings in Center City. There is traffic backed up down the cereal aisle at Pathmark. There is frigging traffic everywhere and my mother calls me. My bladder is the size of Idaho and the little gas light shaped like a gas pump on my dash is searing it's red light into my brain like a branding iron. Just then, a fat, bearded woman in a big gas-sucking SUV veers through two lanes of traffic and cuts in front of me. I wish I could hang my schlong out the window and spray her oversized Global Warming mobile with my piss, like a fire boat hosing down a burning tanker. In my mind, she's flipped over on the side of the road, because I'm Magneto and have the ability to lift even her monstrous vehicle and what I'm sure is a monstrous ass, and send them both flying into a mangled mess of twisted metal and broken bones with the waggle of my finger.

I get off the expressway, finally, and find that the two minute ride from there to my place is also backed up. It's another fifteen minutes to go three blocks. I grab the first parking spot I could find and make it into my apartment just in time to keep the urine from squirting out my eye sockets.

My car made it through. My bladder made it through. My sanity nearly intact. I sit down for a quick bite, and watch the news to see those poor bastards still out on the roads. Whoever said hell is hot never drove through a wintry mix.