White-out

I'm having a rough week, and it's only Monday. Please someone, shoot me now!

Today was supposed to be a long but easy drive from Milwaukee to Grand Forks and then I'd get to crash in a hotel room and get ready for training I was supposed to do tomorrow. "Supposed to" is the operative term here.

So I woke up today at 6AM to get on the road early to avoid traffic. That worked out well, I avoided all the traffic around Milwaukee and Madison, and other it being a gloomy day, things looked good. Wrong! Between Madison and St. Paul, there are nasty rainstorms that nearly made me pull off the road a half dozen times. Just before the Minnesota border, it clears up nicely and I even get to see a little sun around St. Paul. That Mother Nature is a fucking teasing bitch, tho.

The whole day was windy, but it got bad after I passed St. Cloud. It got a little foggy, but not enough to bother my vision. Then, the car sounded like it was getting pelted with sand. I figured that they salted or sanded the roads recently, and try to ignore it. The sounds get louder and I start getting worried. Then I finally can see that I'm not driving in fog, I'm driving in the beginnings of snow. It's not quite snow, tho. It's frozen drizzle, which is why I thought I was getting sandblasted. As I keep driving, conditions continue to deteriorate. Soon, I have to drive 60, then 50, then 40 on a stretch of road that I was doing 70 on. Lucky for me, not too many people are on the roads, and since the wind is blowing so hard, it's not collecting much on the road to make it icy and slippery.

The visibility goes right into the crapper, tho. I'm driving half blind, but I'm being careful and keep going. I get real worried when I am almost in Fargo and find out that they closed I-94. I must've missed them closing the highway by just a few minutes the way it sounds, too. No word about how things are on I-29, but I only have 70 miles to drive on it to get to my hotel room. I'm 2 and a half hours late when I reach Fargo, but according to the news, it's passable. I trek onward.

After the last Fargo exit, I notice that the road is getting a little icy. I slow down enough to give myself room in the sparse traffic so I don't have to worry about hitting someone if I have to stop quickly. I guessed I pushed my luck to the breaking point. I started to slide a little to the right, and let off the gas, turn into the skid, and avoid my brake. Skid averted, until I start bring the car back into the lane. Then I skid to the left and skid hard. It's a sickening feeling to be behind the wheel, and have no control of what's going on.

Things go into slow motion. I was skidding at almost a right angle to traffic and I'm facing the southbound traffic. There was a grassy median between the northbound and southbound lanes luckily. I was also sliding closer to the median. As soon as my front tire hits the grass, my car catches traction, lurches into the median, and spins me around. I come to rest in the middle of the median, facing the way I came from, but unhurt. I turn on the hazards and go out to look at the car. I feel lucky that both myself and the car hasn't taken any damage. I quickly hop back into the car, put it in first gear instead of drive, and hit the gas. I go nowhere. Reverse? Nowhere. Fuck.

Remember that rain I passed through? It had gone through here yesterday evening and had drenched them just as bad as the places that I drove through. They got their drenching right before the sun went down. Right before it dropped below freezing.

I was now parked on this slab of ice, grass, and collecting snow. Like most medians, it is built in a rough "V" shap. I quickly realize that I have a better chance of getting laid tonight, than I do of getting this car out of the ditch. This is the first time I've ever gotten stuck in a storm. Since I'm from Wisconsin and I hear enough tales of getting stuck, so I know what to do without freaking out. I call up the county sheriff and tell them where I am and ask for a tow. They tell me it will be a while, so I turn off my engine, zip up my jacket, and put my gloves back on. It gets dark early here, so soon I'm sitting in the dark listening to the wind howl and drive the frozen rain relentlessly against my car. The windows ice up quick so I don't see anything but the very occaisional headlights beyond the white blur outside.

You don't know how badly I could've used a friendly voice at this time, but the few people I can call are working or not answering their phone. I was going to turn on the radio, but I remember from somewhere that if you are stuck in the snow for any length of time you are supposed to conserve gas and battery power, so I leave it off. Instead, I clean up my car a bit.

A while later, a cop pulls up and motions me to come to his car. I can barely see anything but I run over and hop in his nice warm car. He lets me know that they are closing up the highway because there is zero visibility, that they are cancelling all tows, and asks what hotel I want to be taken to in Fargo. I gather my bags quickly as the storm sandblasts (iceblasts?) my face raw and stash them in the back of the cruiser. The 10 miles back to Fargo takes 45 minutes because we can barely see the road at all.

Finally he drops me off at the hotel, and I check in quickly. I am exhausted and starving by this point. I call up Pizza Hut since I can't go anywhere with my car in a ditch 10 miles up the road. They cancelled deliveries tonight. So did Dominoes and Little Ceasars. I go to the front desk and ask them about close restaraunts. They called the two nearby for me, and they're already closed. The supermarket a block and a half away is closed too. Nobody is supposed to be on the road anymore tonight due to the storm.

So here I am, sitting in my hotel room with my scrounged dinner. A handful of mints and a can of Sprite. I am supposed to be in Grand Forks at 9AM, and I can't get a towing company to schedule picking me up and getting to my car ditch. They tell me they'll put my name on a list and we'll see when they can get to me in the morning.

I'm so tired, stressed, hungry, and frustrated, that I had to do something or go fucking bonkers, so I blogged. I don't fucking get paid enough for getting my sex and social life annihilated, being forced to deal with unrealistic expectations from my company and some of the people I deal with, and have no option but to make my scheduled appointments no matter how bad the weather, or how ill I could get. If I allow myself to get all wound up here, I probably would curl up in bed and start crying. That's why I'm venting profusely tonight. After this, I'll eat my mints, drink my beverage, take a nice hot shower, then veg out watching the History Channel. Maybe I'll even work up the energy for a quick jerk before I fall asleep, but it ain't fucking likely.

Anyway, thanks for lending me your shoulder tonight. I needed it. Feel free to whisper soothing things in my ear if you want.