THE PEAK OF STUPIDITY

I fucking LOVE California. I feel a little like Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz today as I go around and chant "There's no place like home" only without the cool red sparkly shoes (gotta get me some, damnit!) I'm just so happy to be somewhere where the sun shines and you don't have to snow shoe to work.

I went to visit my family in Eastern Washington for four days, as a post Christmas get-together since I couldn't be there at Christmas. It was great seeing my mom, but I realized the reason behind the phrase "you can't go home again" is because the weather sucks.

It seemed to snow CONSTANTLY while I was in Washington. When it wasn't snowing vertically, it snowed horizontally. While it didn't come down in soft gentle flakes, it came down in big wet blankets. And it was fucking COLD - rarely above freezing. Now I grew up in this and much worse during my time in Canada. But during that time, I thought everyone had to endure winters like this. I did not know there were whole parts of the planet where you could sit back and have a margarita in your shirt sleeves OUTDOORS in December. If I had known this, I would have certainly run away from home and joined the Mexican circus. But I didn't, so I dealt with it.

Now the only time I have to deal with it is on these pleasant visits home. And this is more than enough.

On my trip back yesterday, I had to drive with my niece over a mountain pass to get to the Seattle airport. When we got up at the crack of dawn to ensure we would have plenty time for this cross-mountain trek, it was - you guessed it - SNOWING. Now for those of you crazies who think snow is pretty, I got news for you. It really isn't. It's just white, and cold, and wet. I don't care how many fucking hot toddies you have either. Getting drunk does not improve it. It just makes it mildly warmer.

My niece and I hit the road - which was covered with the white, not-so-pretty crap, and slowly made our way up the mountain, noticing that the flakes were getting larger and closer together as we went. About 20 miles before the summit, they made us pull over and put chains on the car. Now I do not have shoes with traction, a coat with lining, or gloves that aren't satin. But I got out with my niece, instructions in my shivering hand, and we worked on putting the fucking chains on the car. Because of the fucking snow. Which is not fucking pretty.

"We're intelligent women, we can do this," my niece said. She's the optimist in the family. We laid the chains out, drove up over them, and were trying to fasten them together with our blue, frost-bitten fingers. But we were having trouble with the fastening mechanism. I saw a guy about two cars away with the same kind of chains, so I walked up to him to ask him for help. "READ THE INSTRUCTIONS," he just told me, not bothering to look up. Wow, what a gentleman. I didn't bother to tell him that I would have told my niece to go down on him if he offered to help. Fucker didn't deserve a blow job with that kind of attitude.

Thing is, neither my nice nor I are helpless woman who expect men to do everything for us. If we had been standing out there with mini-skirts on and our boobs hanging out, refusing to try to put the chains on in case we chipped a nail, crying because we were getting snow in our hair, someone - even that guy - would have probably come to our rescue. But because we weren't screaming and hysterical, and because no one knew my niece would give them a blow job, we were ignored. We just wanted some advice, maybe a demo so we could do the rest on our own. We'd already done most of the work and had already become soaked from the snow. Whatever happened to just basic chivalry? Was it truly a thing of the past? And if so, how about just basic kindness? Was that dead too?

We got the chains on and made it over the pass about an hour later. Safely on the other side, we stopped to take the chains off. By this time we were in Western Washington, and there wasn't any snow on the ground. I'd never been so happy to see green in my life. As we're working on the chains, the guy I had asked for help earlier pulled up and stopped behind us.

"Um, hi," he said as he watched us fumble underneath the wheel well. "Can you tell me where the summit is?"

"Well, according to Webster's Dictionary, it was at the top of the mountain," I said, thinking if this guy was so proud of reading directions, he should try reading a map or maybe a 6th grade vocabulary book.

"How far back is that?" he asked.

"Pretty much right before you started driving down hill," my niece said as she was kneeling in the snow fumbling with the fastener on the chains.

"Does that mean I have to put my chains back on?" he said, and I looked back to find he had indeed already taken the chains off his car. I couldn't suppress a giggle.

"Yep. And go back up hill," I said. Maybe there was such a thing as karma afterall.

He looked confused and a little sad as he walked away, still without any offer to help us. But maybe that wasn't a bad thing. Afterall, if that guy put our chains on, they probably would have fallen off in transit, much like his brain.

Chivalry was indeed dead, we decided. But stupidity was alive and well in any climate.

XXX

Have a safe and happy New Years Eve everyone!

Comments

[witchypoo]

Perfect! But I bet you didn't need chains in Canada, unless you live in the Rockies.
And just you wait, Missy, until you hit menopause and have hot flashes. Canada will look better to you then, eh?
Here's to 2008 being the best evah!

[Star]

This blog entry tells me you were in Seattle. No phone call. No shots of tequila at the airport. No international incidents. - BITCH

[Daisy]

Um, how about visiting your family in the summer? Ever heard of Christmas in July? And to think, you said you were a die hard Canadian/Northwesterner...ha!

[Twigs]

Love your blog. Be glad you haven't tried to cross the passes over the past two weeks. They have been closed repeatedly. As a teenager my dad made me practice chaining up in the yard....

Ya should've flown into Wenatchee. There's nothing more "fun" than those little Horizon puddle jumpers. :)