Heigh-Ho, Heigh-Ho...

0700, 25 February 2015

My smart phone has a weather application built into it. Normally I'll check the weather-guesser prognosis once a day (or more) just for grins. I'm curious about the weather but tend to avoid the television (aka idiot box) as it seems that the weather people have recently gotten rather hysterical as regards the weather.

When did we start naming winter storms? (Yes, that's a rhetorical question...)

Tuesday morning, I checked the weather on the smart phone. Precipitation was predicted a few days in the future. Not for Wednesday.

So Wednesday morning I woke up at my usual time, after a rather fitful night's "sleep," shaved, showered and clad myself in my normal sartorial splendor (jeans and a nice shirt, I don't like "dress" pants, despise them as a matter of fact) and headed downstairs to don my outdoor clothing to head off to my place of employment.

Gazing out the windows of Chez Sarge to what did my wondering eyes appear? Snow. Approximately 6 to 8 inches of new snow. Totally unexpected.

Yes, it was pretty (as evidenced in that opening photo, all sparkly it was).

It would have been a lot prettier had it been a Saturday morning, that is, a day I didn't have to go out first thing in the morning.

Surprisingly it wasn't that cold outside, upper twenties I believe. (No, that's not cold. Not really. Below zero is cold. Anything above ten is tolerable. BTW, that's Fahrenheit, we don't do Celsius. The metric system is weird and was invented during the rather nasty French Revolution, making it, in my book anyway, suspect.)

So after brushing what felt like three feet of snow off my car I headed off to work. Down the unplowed boulevards and by-ways of Little Rhody. Seems that the plows were still working elsewhere. Not a problem, I have all wheel drive and the snow was light and fluffy and melting on the highway. Where over the past few storms they have put down approximately 300 pounds of salt and sand per square foot. (Yes, I exaggerate, but not by much.)

Heading down the road, I note that the vehicles in front of me are flinging wet mush and salty/sandy fluid all over my vehicle. Visibility was less than optimal.

Why is it that the passenger-side windshield wiper and the passenger-side spray thingee for the windshield washer fluid always perform superbly and without flaw? Whereas the driver-side wiper always leaves horrible streaks and the spray thingee always manages to be plugged with a few minute ice crystals. Even after the vehicle owner-operator has paid particular attention to cleaning that little sum-bitch thoroughly?

'Tis a conspiracy I tell you.

Now my troubles eventually subsided and the little spray thingee on my side of the car cleared itself. Of course as soon as I would clean the windshield, the guy in front of me would throw up another wave of nastiness. I do believe I may have used an inordinate amount of washer fluid on the way to work today.

I arrive at my place of work and notice that the minions are busy clearing the back of the really big parking lot where almost no one parks. Whereas the lot where I park is only half plowed. The half they plowed is away from the road. Between me and where I normally park is a whole lot of fresh powder. Unmarked.

Yes, the joy of a twelve-year old boy coursed through my veins as I turned the wheel and drove into that wide expanse of fresh, new fallen snow. Fun, fun, fun. Short-lived as it was.

I'm in my spot and ready to begin my daily labors.

What I really wanted to do was have a nice long nap.

Sigh...

They don't pay me to nap.

Heigh-Ho, Heigh-Ho...