A for Absolute Madness!

Let the madness begin!!!

This past weekend, MusicMan and I both got the obligatory Christmas plan emails from our moms. Even though both of them should know the routine by now, because MusicMan and I have been married for a little over two years and celebrating holidays together for about four years, our mothers like to be coy. We spend Christmas Eve with MusicMan’s family and Christmas Day with mine.

My crazy mother, who you’ll remember is sick and thus supposed to be taking it easy, decided that we’d do brunch on Christmas Day at around noon. And, just in case people stick around long enough to get hungry again, she’ll have lasagna ready to go in the oven later on in the day. The email she sent to my sister and me indicated that we should invite our in-laws. (Well, my sister isn’t technically married, and it’s hard to keep track of whether or not she and the doofus who fathered her children are together or not at any given moment, but whatever.) The more the merrier, right?!

WRONG! My MIL (Mother-In-Law), though I love her to pieces, and my mom are way too much alike, which means they don’t necessarily get along very well. This is understandable, because it’s hard enough to give one drama queen enough attention (Is there ever enough attention for an attention-whore?!), so you can imagine how hard it is to muster up enough attention for two. MIL most likely won’t join us; nor will my father-in-law, but there’s always a chance (however slight that chance may be).

How my mom thinks we’re going to cram four extra people into her tiny house that barely accommodates the “normal” crowd is completely beyond me. Also, she’s supposed to be taking it easy, but she won’t be if my and my sister’s in-laws join us, because then she’ll have to play the hostess with the mostest to prove just how incredible she really is; especially in the face of adversity. (She is still incredibly sick. We find out Thursday if they're going to hospitalize her for a bit or not, because she's retaining so much fluid that she can now no longer bend her legs and her skin is starting to show signs of being stretched to the max. There is also fluid in her lungs—likely because it has nowhere else to go.)

I, being the loving and helpful daughter that I am, asked my mother to let me know what I could bring to Christmas. I was really hoping the answer wasn’t going to be fruit salad. That’s the standard item usually assigned to me for all holidays. I’m assuming that’s because my family knows I’m not much for cooking. I am capable of more than fruit salad, and MusicMan is quite a good cook, but still I get stuck with the fruit salad.

Photo Courtesy (My family prefers it sans nuts. Doesn't that just look like a culinary delight?!)

I hate the fruit salad!! I don’t even eat it—practically no one does (except mom’s husband and his son)—yet I have to prepare it every holiday. It’s not particularly hard to do, which is why I get the task:

Take a large can of that gross, syrupy fruit cocktail, drain it, pour it in a large bowl

Add three or four sliced Bananas and a can of Mandarin Orange slices (drained) to bowl (I usually forget this part.)

Add one bag of those pastel colored fruity mini marshmallows to bowl

Add large container of Cool Whip to bowl

(Don’t use real whipping cream, because that will totally mess it up. The “salad” needs to taste as overly sweet as is humanly possible without it being actual candy. The irony of the healthy image projected by the name—fruit salad—is the secret ingredient to this not at all healthy “fruit salad.” So, it’s very important to use Cool Whip.)

Stir.

That’s it. See? Not very hard at all. The hardest part about it is making sure most all of the syrup from the fruit cocktail is drained so that, once it’s mixed with the cool whip, it’s nice and smooth instead of a congealed mess. Oh, and remembering the bananas and oranges; I seem to always forget those for some reason, and the lack of bananas totally ruins my mom’s husband’s life. I think I’ve totally ruined his life like three times now. Also, trying not to slit my finger open on the jagged, sharp metal edge of the fruit cocktail can seems to be an ever-present challenge.

(Don’t want a repeat of the Thanksgiving of 2007 when half the fruit salad—i.e. all of the bananas and some of the marshmallows—ended up in the trash because they were covered in my blood. Maybe preparing fruit salad is harder than I thought.)

I learned too late to be careful what I wish for. My mom responded to my offer saying that she’d love for me to bring my French Toast Bake,* a “bunch” of cooked sausage and bacon that we can heat up in the oven, and maybe some fruit salad. (SERIOUSLY?!)

(*Which I introduced at Easter last year, just to show that I’m capable of more than fruit salad, and it would’ve been great with other brunch foods, but someone forgot to tell me that the menu had been switched from brunch to lunch, and French toast doesn’t go so well with ham, cheesy potatoes, mashed potatoes and gravy, various vegetables and other savory items, and then I vowed never to bring anything to a family holiday meal ever again. Ever! But, you can see how well that worked out. Sometimes, but very rarely, I might have just a tinge of my mom’s drama queen genes.)

I will, of course, obediently bring the foods I was assigned. Except the fruit salad! I am taking a stand. This will be a fruit salad-less Christmas, because I am going to conveniently forget to make it and bring it. Thus single-handedly destroying the holiday for my mom’s husband, I’m sure, but hopefully he’ll find a way to pull through and survive; he’s a fighter. (No, he's not.) Too bad. Important causes, like this one, sometimes have casualties.

Now, I’m just wondering how I’m going to get everything done. You see, my mom seems to have forgotten that I’ve already offered to make and bring five types of cookies, a few dozen cake balls, and some fudge. And, while she is off of work and can make one of each of her five types of cookies per day on the week leading up to Christmas and get done in plenty of time, I don’t have that luxury. I can’t even start baking until next weekend.

This coming weekend I have to study for my Algebra final. Next weekend is, of course, the memorial bonfire for my sister. The Friday night before, I have to prepare the food I plan to bring to the bonfire. This means I’m stuck baking five types of cookies (and hopefully cake balls and fudge), at least four dozen of each kind so there are plenty to go around, on the Saturday night after the bonfire and that Sunday. I work the following week, and that next weekend is Christmas already, so truly next weekend is the only time I’ll have!!

My mother also seems to have neglected the fact that I work on Christmas Eve day, because my company is apparently run by Ebenezer Scrooge and is too cheap to give us the day off. Granted we only have to work a half day, but still; it's inconvenient and kinda sucks. A lot. So, instead of unwinding for a bit between getting home from work and going to my in-laws’, I’ll have to prepare the French Toast Bake that needs to sit in the refrigerator overnight so that the bread can soak up all of the custardy goodness. (And I can hopefully prove to my family, once and for all, that I'm capable of culinary delights beyond fruit salad.)

Photo via

I’m tired just thinking of doing all of this, but I have to find the energy to actually do all of it now! And, I feel like I’m coming down with something, but I’m not even going to think about being sick because I just don’t have the time for it. Mind over matter!

If you don’t hear for me for a while, lovely reader, it’s likely because I’ve been overcome by cookie dough. You’ll probably find me, rocking back and forth in the fetal position, under a mound of Snickerdoodle, Peanut Butter, and Oatmeal cookie dough. Don’t approach too quickly; you don’t want to startle me and end up getting pelted with cake balls!!! :-)

B for BAD Neighbor

Okay, so after my last two posts, I’m going to completely shift gears today. It’s time to lighten things up around here. I got the idea for this post when my lovely bloggy friend, Shana, wrote a post about bad neighbors. I immediately felt bad for Shana, because I think we’ve all been there at one point or another. Then, I remembered the time that I had been a bad neighbor. A really, really, really, horribly, terribly bad neighbor. And, I decided to swallow my pride and tell you about it, because I’ve reached the point where I’m able to laugh about it. I hope you will too. Go ahead and laugh at my expense. It’s okay. I encourage it.

At the age of 25, I was living alone for the first time ever in my life. I’d gone from living in my mom’s house, to living in an apartment with my then fiancé, Alex, to buying a townhouse with Alex and living a very grown up life for someone in her early twenties. One day, I woke up and realized that I just couldn’t live that life anymore.

Alex and I had dated since I was 17 and he was 19. We had, in essence, grown up together. Or rather, I grew up. And he? Well, he didn’t. Not so much anyway. Not at the same rate as me, I guess. At any point, I didn’t love him anymore. At least not the way that you should love the man you’re planning to marry. I was sick of being his maid and his mommy and getting very little in return for that. It had started to feel more and more like we were roommates—not partners—and he wasn’t even a very good roommate at that.

So I did the most logical, yet hardest, thing I’d ever done: I packed up my things and left. I moved to a suburb about thirty minutes south of were Alex and I had been living. I’m not going to lie, lovely reader. I chose the suburb because a certain someone lived there.

Joe and I had reconnected months before. After having not spoken for years as a result of Joe crossing boundaries that never should’ve been crossed when you consider that I was the fiancé of his best friend, Joe emailed me and we started talking, which lead to us spending time together, which lead to me realizing how truly unhappy I was with my current situation. It should’ve been a bad sign to Alex that I was even talking to Joe at all, but he didn’t seem to care. And that’s what pushed me over the edge.

There had always been chemistry—a deep connection—between Joe and me. I know now, thanks to age, maturity, and hindsight, that it was just lust. But back then, it seemed like love. He encouraged me to move to the wonderful suburb he lived in. So, I did, and we started dating.

I found the greatest two-bedroom townhouse style apartment, which had a one car garage and its own entry (thus the “townhouse style”). I enjoyed my new found freedom and peace and quiet and took great pride in living on my own. Because Joe worked a second shift job, he’d often come over late on weeknights so that we could spend a little time together before I went to bed. Life seemed so great, and I was happier than I’d been in a long, long time.

One day, about six months after I’d moved into my apartment, I got home to find an envelope on my door. It was quite obvious that there was a very important message inside, because the envelope was fastened securely to the door with two large strips of silver duct tape. The envelope was addressed to Neighbor in Apartment 112, so it was definitely for me. I’ve included an artist's rendering below. (Note: I am the artist, and I’m not what you'd call very artistic, which I'm sure you'll notice.)

See? Whoever left this message really wanted me to get it. So, needless to say, I was eager to read it. Once inside my apartment, I tore open the envelope to find a one page handwritten letter:

Dear neighbor-

I wanted to make you aware of an issue that you might not be aware of, since I know you just moved in a few months ago. The walls and floors in these buildings are very thin, which means we can often hear much of what our neighbors do. (Editor’s Note: Seriously?! Someone’s gonna write a note to bitch about my TV being a little loud, or worse, me walking too loudly?) Many times this isn’t an issue, because we all tend to keep similar hours, but your boyfriend sometimes seems to visit kind of late at night. (Oh, Oh. Getting a little worried here.) I’m pretty sure he visited last night, which is what prompted me to finally write this letter. (Starting to wish this was just a complaint about how loud my TV is, but realizing it probably isn't.)

Last night, my young son woke me up at around 1 a.m. asking what was wrong with the lady in the other apartment. (My heart is in my throat.) He was quite upset because he thought that the lady was being hurt, because she kept screaming, “Oh, God! Oh, God!” I had to explain to him that the lady was fine and that she was probably just really excited about something. This isn’t the first time this has happened. (OHMYGOD! OHMYGOD! OHMYGOD! I have to move. NOW! Right this instant!)

What you do in your apartment is your own business, but I wanted to let you know that other people can hear you. I hope that we’re able to resolve this issue without getting the apartment management involved.

Thank you,
Concerned (and tired) Neighbor

By the time I finished reading the note, I was shaking and my face was a brilliant shade of red. For a few milliseconds, I was proud. But then, I was mortified. I knew (as I’m sure you do too) exactly what noises the neighbor was talking about. You see, many times when Joe came over late in the evening, we spent time in my bedroom doing what many normal twenty-somethings who are oh so in love do. And though I’d participated in such “adult activities” with my former fiancé, it had never been as much fun or as good. Joe liked to know how well he was “performing” and how much I was “enjoying myself,” so I, of course, obliged.

I could not believe this was happening to me. I felt like a teenager who'd just been caught by her parents. (Which, incidentally, never happend to me.) Once I realized that moving wasn’t an option, because running from my shame wasn’t worth the amount of money it would take to break the lease and pay a damage deposit and first month’s rent elsewhere, I began to wrack my brain over which neighbor left the note. I needed to know who I now had to avoid at all costs. I was so horrified that I contemplated never leaving my apartment ever again.

I didn’t take long for me to figure out that “Concerned (and tired) Neighbor” was the neighbor who lived in the apartment below mine, a single mom with a son who was probably around five years old. I only had one other neighbor, who was barely ever home and to my knowledge had no children. Also, since his apartment was to the right of my living room, which was on the opposite end of the apartment than my bedroom, it wasn’t too likely that he would’ve heard any goings on in the bedroom.

When my mortification subsided a bit, thanks to an instant messaging conversation with Joe in which we had determined that the neighbor was probably just jealous that I was “getting some” and she wasn’t, I was a little angry. While I appreciated my neighbor’s tact (Could you imagine her going to the apartment management to resolve this instead of first trying to deal with it directly first?! Mortification times a billion.), and the fact that she had written a note instead of trying to discuss the issue face-to-face, I was pissed that she had closed the note with what I perceived to be a bit of a threat.

Also, since this issue quite obviously disrupted her life, why had she waited six months to tell me about it?! What kind of sick person listens in on other’s “adult activities” like that?! I knew that she didn’t have her son on a regular basis, indicating that he perhaps was visiting his other parent quite a bit of the time, so I was sure that Little Miss Pervert only grew tired of the noise when it happened to occur on a night that her son was home. Would I have received a note had her son never heard? I doubted it. (What can I say? I was a stupid, embarrassed, paranoid twenty five year old.)

I resolved to avoid Concerned Neighbor at all costs, which would be a little tricky to do since we basically shared a driveway. However, I decided I could use the thin walls and floors to my advantage. Every time I got ready to go somewhere, before I actually left my apartment, I paused in front of the door; looking out the peephole and listening for signs that neighbor might also be leaving her apartment. This technique worked well for quite a while; until the day that I was unloading groceries from the trunk of my car and she pulled her car into her driveway right next to me. I quickly decided to pretend I didn’t notice her, hoping that she’d quickly exit her car and walk to her apartment.

But, as I turned to walk to my apartment, I noticed her standing not even three feet away from me. Oh no. Please don’t say anything. Please, please, please, please, please. I’d fixed the problem. Joe’s late night visits were limited to once per week, and I worked diligently to keep myself quiet on those visits. In fact, I was pretty sure I’d become the quietest neighbor in the world...I crept around my apartment as though the floor was filled with landmines and I barely ever turned the TV on, let alone turn the volume up.

I gave a quick smile and began walking to my apartment, willing her not to talk to me and not to follow me. Maybe, just maybe, she didn’t know that I was “Neighbor in Apartment 112.”

I heard a voice behind me, “Do you need any help?” I wanted to disappear.

I turned halfway towards her, careful not to meet her gaze, “Ummmm…no thanks. I’ve got it!” I smiled as I felt my face turning red; the embarrassment I’d felt weeks ago came flooding back.

“Are you sure? Looks like you’ve got your hands full. Let me at least get that garage door for you.” She reached her hand inside my garage stall and hit the button for the automatic door.

“No. Really. I’ve got it. Thanks for taking care of the garage door though!” followed by a huge smile. The garage door finished its descent, bringing the blaringly obvious 112 into full view. If she hadn’t known before who I was, she certainly knew now. I wished for a giant hole to open in the ground and swallow me up.

We began walking. As we got closer to the steps where she’d go down to go to her apartment and I’d go up to go to mine, I began sweating. Was she going to say anything? Should I say something? Just then, I dropped my keys. WHY does something like that always happen at the most inopportune times?

I turned to pick them up, but neighbor was quicker. “Sorry,” I said as she grabbed my keys off the sidewalk. As she handed them back to me, I looked her in the eyes, smiled warmly, and said, “Thank you so much.” I hoped she knew that the keys weren’t the only thing I was apologizing or thanking her for. I was so incredibly grateful that she was such a good neighbor.

I think she got the point, because from then on, we were always cordial. And, not only was I never confronted by management with any neighbor complaints, but in the year and half that I lived there after that, I never received another note.

S for Smart Puppies

If you’ve been reading along for a while now, first THANK YOU (it truly is a pleasure having you along for the ride), and second you know I have two dogs: “Bug,” a Pug who is approximately a year and a half old, and “Wiggly,” a two-year-old Boston Terrier. Music Man and I are those people.  You know what I mean, the ones whose dogs are their children. Yep! That’s totally us. We get our share of teasing from friends and family, and Music Man’s mother often reminds us of how much she’d love human grandchildren, but we love being doggy parents. And, since it’s the only type of parents we’ll probably ever be (we are childfree by choice, which is a blog for another day), we take our roles seriously and try to raise good doggy citizens.

I read about a study that was recently done to determine how smart dogs are. The study showed that dogs can understand up to 150 words and can count up to 7. Why a dog would need to count, and how “they” determined dogs could count is completely beyond me, but it’s a cool little fact. The study also indicated that dogs, even adult ones, never really get beyond the comprehension or behavior level of a two-year-old child. This does not surprise me at all. Nor, I would imagine, would it surprise any dog owners out there.

I can vouch for the fact that dogs know many words. Ours know kennel, sit, down, wait, off, here, come, dinner, breakfast, hungry, mommy, mama, daddy, treats, NO! (they sometimes pretend not to know this one), good girl/boy, bedtime, nigh-nigh, and many many more.

I didn’t need to read this study to know that my dogs are, in fact, quite smart. The ways they interact with each other shows just how smart, and manipulative, they can be. For example, there’s the never-ending battle of the Elk antler. We buy Elk antlers for the dogs to chew. We like them for several reasons: (1) they last quite a long time, (2) they’re all natural, (3) they’re cruelty-free, harvested from the ground after shed by the Elk, (4) the dogs looooooove them, and (5) they are great for the dogs’ teeth. Unbeknownst to us, some antlers are apparently better than others. We learned this quickly when the dogs started fighting over one particular antler, even though there was a perfectly good second one available.

The other day, Bug had control of the antler. Wiggly kept trying and trying to get it from him, and I kept telling her “No,” because Bug had it first and they need to take turns. Wiggly was not happy about this. Bug was getting really sick of her attempted theft, so he took the antler into the “untouchable zone” (also known as his kennel). Smart puppy! Wiggly soon proved that she is much, much smarter...

She went over to the front door and rang the Poochie-Bells, which we have trained the dogs to use in order to let us know they need to go outside. She knew exactly what would happen when she rang the bells: Mama would get up off the couch, get bundled up, leash the dogs, and take them outside. She also knew that her brother would jump at the chance to go outside, completely forgetting about the antler. Her plan worked.

As soon as I started to get bundled up, Bug ran out of his kennel and did his impatient “I want to go outside” dance while Wiggly ran to his kennel and grabbed the antler.  Though I knew that neither dog probably really needed to go outside, the bells had been rung, so we had to go out. It’s the principle of the thing. The dogs need to know that ringing the bells means going outside.

Out we went, and I was none too happy when my suspicions proved true as neither dog actually went potty. Wiggly had simply used the bells as a mere distraction to get her brother to give up the antler. Sure enough, when we got inside, Wiggly grabbed the antler and lay down in the middle of the living room floor chewing away and reveling in her victory. Of course she got to the antler first, because she’s always the first one in. Bug is afraid of the door, so he waits until it is completely open before he runs inside. Wiggly knew this too. Unbelievable!

Our Furry Scholar

&

Her Unwitting Victim (Who really does look rather witless here.)

               

Since figuring out how effective this tactic is, both dogs have used the bells not for their intended purpose, of course, but to go outside to snack on the delicious piles of rabbit poop that are all over our yard. Unfortunately rabbit poop is apparently quite a delicacy to dogs. While I don't want them to continue to think they're outsmarting me, I also can't ignore the ringing of the bells. I just know that the time I choose to ignore them is the time that one of the dogs will really need to go, and I don't want them deciding that the white carpet (I know, stupid, right? It's a rental, so I didn't get to choose.) is a fabulous spot to relieve themselves.

Who knew that dogs could plot and scheme and be so manipulative?!? Music Man and I need to watch out. It’s two on two, so the teams are at least evenly matched, but with smart dogs like these it might only be a matter of time before we’re overtaken. Good thing we have size in our favor!

W for Winter Driving in Minnesota (alternatively, H for Hell)

One hour and twenty five minutes. That’s how long it took me to get to work today. As a frame of reference, it usually takes me half an hour (maybe forty minutes on a bad day). I knew when I took the dogs out this morning that traffic was going to be bad. We apparently got a few inches of snow last night, and it was windy and cold this morning. It was so windy, in fact, that I couldn’t tell if it was still snowing or if the new snow that was on the ground was just blowing around. Welcome to Minnesota, my friends…

I’ve lived in this godforsaken state my whole life (that’s 31 years, in case you’re counting), and I sometimes wonder why, now that I’m an adult, I don’t just leave. Then I remember that all of my family and friends are here, that I’d miss them all terribly if I moved to another state, and that I do enjoy the other three seasons Minnesota offers. In the midst of nasty winters such as this one though, I wonder once again if those other three seasons are worth enduring the winter weather. Typically winter goes from about November (sometimes the end of October) through about March (sometimes into April); it is our state’s longest season. It’s also the worst one.

There are three things I hate most about winter in Minnesota: (1) large amounts of snow, (2) the sub-zero temperatures, and (3) ice, which is typically a result of number one melting and number two occurring soon after that melt. The snow usually becomes bearable after a while, because you just learn to cope with it. The sub-zero temps ensure that it’s not going anywhere anytime soon, because that would necessitate temperatures getting warm enough for the snow to actually melt, which doesn’t often happen in the middle of winter. Instead, it will get just warm enough for some of the snow to melt, and then sub-zero temps will blast in ensuring that the snow is here to stay, and as a special treat, it’s brought along its friend ice. Because, ya know, that just adds to the fun. It’s not so bad once sidewalks, driveways, and roads are cleared off. Unfortunately, once ice is here, it’s usually here to stay for a while.

The first snowfall of winter is usually the worst. That’s when it becomes abundantly clear that many of my fellow Minnesotans apparently have traumatic brain injuries that cause them to completely forget, in the span of about seven months, how to drive in the snow. When the first snow of winter hits the ground, I know that there is no way I am getting to work on time. It’s not hard, in my opinion anyway, to drive in the snow. Really, it’s not. All that’s required is good tires, good brakes, and a willingness to drive slower than usual. Common sense is also quite necessary, but unfortunately a large part of the population seems to have misplaced theirs.

The key to winter driving is: one must drive slower than normal and leave an appropriate amount of distance between themselves and the car ahead of them in order to have the appropriate amount of time and space to stop on roads that might be a little more slippery than normal. This is where the amnesia of those traumatic brain injury survivors comes in.

Many people, especially those who drive SUVs and large trucks, seem to think that they are invincible in the snow. Common sense goes out the window as these people weave from lane to lane and drive well above what would be considered a safe speed limit for the weather. This morning, that speed limit seemed to be about 15 mph. On a highway in which traffic usually moves at 70 mph, traffic was only moving at about 15 mph (when it was moving at all), because the roads were bad. These maniacs decide that the rest of us are driving slower simply to piss them off, so they disregard the safe speed limit; choosing instead to weave in and out of traffic and to speed along the shoulders on the highway. (Interestingly enough, you see more SUVs and large vehicles stuck in ditches than small cars. Coincidence? I think not.)

These maniacs make it hard to keep appropriate distance between yourself and others, because they exploit the tiniest gap between cars—squeezing their way in no matter what all in the name of gaining some distance. This behavior scares those already timid drivers who weep at the first signs of snow, believing that driving over 5 miles per hour (no matter what the road conditions) means certain death. Between the maniacs and the overly cautious, there are those of us who understand that we will get to where we’re going eventually, and we can get there safely as long as we drive sensibly and respect the road and weather conditions. Unfortunately, there seem to be more maniacs and overly cautious drivers on the road than we moderates, and this causes problems for all of us.

On days like today, ice has been on the ground and roads for a while, which means the new snow covers slick spots and makes them more slippery. Also, because traffic is just creeping along, black ice is created in spots where cars have been stopped in place for a bit (especially on entrance/exit ramps and bridges). Black ice happens when the exhaust from cars turns into condensation, which freezes immediately upon hitting the ground because it is that cold outside. Without snow, these spots can be seen by the driver, allowing her to know that she should drive slowly and brake carefully; however, when snow covers the slick spots, it becomes a guessing game. One must drive more cautiously in this situation. My car has anti-lock brakes, so when I hit ones of these spots, my car makes all sorts of nasty grinding noise at it tries to stop itself. This used to make me freak the heck out, but it doesn’t anymore; I know my car is stopping and I’ve left myself plenty of room to stop, so I have no worries about hitting the car in front of me.

It is scary to be on the roads in these conditions, because no matter how good and carefully I drive, I am still at risk of a trip into the ditch (at best) and an accident (at worst). Why? Because my life and safety depends on the drivers around me to drive as safely and cautiously as they should, and society’s unfortunately prevalent entitlement mentality (and seeming lack of common sense) creates drivers who don’t seem to think about or care how their stupidity can affect others. They act as though they are the only ones on the road, the only ones running late, and/or the only ones with somewhere important to get to. Because of this, they put the rest of us in danger.

For example, let’s say Mr. Maniac breezes past Mr. Overly Cautious right as Mr. Overly Cautious hits an icy patch. Already freaked out and flustered by Mr. Maniac, Mr. Overly Cautious overreacts and jams on his brakes. The actions of these bad drivers could have several outcomes:

1. Mr. Overly Cautious slides on the ice and ends up in the ditch. This sucks for him, but at least the rest of us are still safe.

2. Mr. Overly Cautious overcorrects as he starts to slide on the ice and hits the car in front of or beside him, resulting in an accident. Because traffic has barely been moving, this is a low impact collision, so little injury results. However, traffic is now further mucked up as the two cars involved in the accident try to move to the side of the road to wait on the shoulder for the police to arrive. Anytime there’s a car sitting on the shoulder of the road (especially on the highway), a “gawker delay” is also created; people simply must look at the misfortune of others. As they’re doing so, they drive slowly, which of course means traffic slows down even more.

3. Mr. Overly Cautious hits the car in front of him, pushing that car into the car in front of or beside it, resulting in a multi car accident. Again, hopefully a low impact accident, but now traffic is severely affected as multiple cars try to move to the side of the road to await the police, and once again, a gawker delay is created.

4. Mr. Maniac hits a patch of ice, slamming into a car or two. Because he’s been driving faster than he should, this results in a car accident with possible injuries. Not cool, Mr. Maniac. Not cool at all. You sir, are a douche bag of the highest degree.

Needless to say, driving in these conditions is stressful and exhausting. I try to keep track of the car ahead of me and the space between us as well as the car behind me and the space they’re keeping between us. I usually drive in the far left or right lane so that I can pull off to the side of the road (and/or into the ditch) if the car behind me isn’t paying attention/is going too fast/is tailgating and can’t stop on time so that I can at least attempt to avoid being hit. It would suck to end up in the ditch, but I have roadside assistance (thanks to my mother-in-law who renews it every year as a Christmas gift to us). I’d rather sit in the ditch and wait for a tow truck than be injured (or worse: killed) by some moron who isn’t paying attention/is going too fast/is tailgating and can’t stop on time.

By the time I got to work today, I was crabby (*cough* understatement *cough*) and tired. All I wanted to do was take a nap. Instead, I grabbed a cup of coffee (thanking the gods that there is a coffee shop in the lobby of my building) and headed up to my desk to begin the workday. After working a long day, I get to repeat the fun driving experience on the way home. It should be lovely, especially since it’s been snowing (or blowing around at least) nearly all day. I just hope that I get home safely and at a decent hour.

As I sit in the car for the long drive home, I will fantasize about becoming independently wealthy, which would allow me to live out of state during these awful months in which Minnesota is transformed into a common senseless, entitlement whore filled frozen tundra. (I'll turn up the heat in the car extra high in order to really be able to feel my fantasty come to life; as I would, of course, live in a warmer environment during Minnesota's winter months.) I would only occasionally visit my “home” state during the winter months; arriving for temporary visits as dictated by holidays and various family functions. My wealth would, of course, allow me to hire a car service, in which case I could at least take a nap in the back seat as my driver navigates the ridiculous traffic. Hey, a girl can dream, can’t she?!?!