That's what was about to set in when I heard the weather reports for Tuesday and Wednesday here in the greater Chicago area.
My truck wasn't done on Monday, and they were hoping to have it done by Tuesday afternoon.
Now I had finally bugged the holy shit out of my brother enough that he just gave me his wife's car to use until mine was done. The eased some of my fears, but when I heard of the snow that was coming, the panic set in again.
Snow. Little car. Bad. Very, very bad.
You see, I bought my first SUV back in 1998. We experienced a freak snow storm that March that paralyzed the area with a couple of inches of ice at first, and then a ton of snow.
At the time, my only form of transportation was the crap death trap mobile I talked about a couple of posts down. It isn't exactly good in snow, and I was trapped at my house.
With no power.
With no land line phone.
With a cat and a dog.
Then, to make matters worse, I discovered the hard way that if you have a well you do indeed need electricity to get more water.
Why don't they teach you this shit in high school instead of like trig?
Anyway, I was stuck, no water, and I was getting cold. Ok, so it was still like 64 degrees in my house, but I am a cold person that doesn't have a whole lot of personal insulation.
My parental units called my cell phone to see if I was ok and to rub in the fact that it was 70 degrees where they live. They must have felt a bit guilty because they called my brother and he in turn called me and said he'd come get me.
"Ok, give me a minute though, I have to get all the dog and cat stuff together."
He was not having that. He said they had to stay here, so I told him to go fuck himself.
I knew that he would eventually cave and feel bad and come get us, which he did of course. I was not going to leave a 90 pound lab to her devices for God knows how long locked up in a house. The cat would be pissed off if we left her, so she would be going along for the ride too.
In the meantime, I decided I better have a Plan B in place in case the guilt didn't wear on him right away. I decided to walk to the little store down the street from me and see if they had any water or food, as I seemed to not have any food either.
Yeah, I'm a real prepared person as you can tell.
What to wear while walking in a freak blizzard? I didn't exactly have anything appropriate. Boots, yeah I should wear boots. Fortunately, I did have boots, but unfortunately they all had like at least 4 inch heals on them.
I decided on the chunky healed ones, as they would probably be safer then the spiked healed ones.
I got out my faux fur, hat, two pairs of gloves, and my 4 inch heal chunky boots.
My dog was excited as hell and loves the snow, so I got her leash to take her with me. I walked a whole 20 feet before I started bitching to the dog. I'm kind of surprised I lasted that long.
My God was it cold! The wind was blowing my faux fur hat off, snow was hitting me in the face, and my chunky heals kept getting stuck in the snow filled street/yard hell you couldn't tell where you were walking.
This. Sucked.
So like two days later (25 minutes) I get to the little Mom and Pop store I try to frequent as often as I can to support the little guy business.
They were fucking closed.
Where the fuck where they? They couldn't have went anywhere, as it was in the middle of the afternoon.
The bastards has deserted us. I don't care if they are like 85 years old, they are still bastards.
I turned around to take my cold, tired, and pissed off ass back home. I bitched and complained to my dog. I can just imagine if anyone was peering out their window. Here I was, in this full length faux fur coat, and hat, with very elegant boots that went up to my knee. I was talking to a dog that was playfully running circles around me, as I had abandoned the whole leash thing after about 40 feet into my journey.
Then my cell phone rings. It's my brother, and he feels bad. I decide to really capitalize on this so I tell him I'm out in the blizzard trying to find food and water so that I don't die or something.
I tell him how it's like being Laura Ingalls in the book "Little House on the Prairie" except I don't have a fucking pump so I don't have no fucking water, and some big dude named Manly probably isn't going to come save my ass when I fall down in the fucking blizzard and I'll probably die a horrible, cold, frozen death.
So my brother was at my house before I managed to get back by walking.
I soon learned that I was better off freezing at my house with no food or water, as his then two year old daughter decided that this would probably be a good time to get the chicken pox and was quite the cranky camper.
My sis-in-law wasn't to thrilled to have my animals there, the oldest kid was being a total brat because the youngest was getting attention, and the youngest was screaming and basically would not shut the fuck up.
Starving, dehydrating, and dying a horrible, frozen, cold death was looking kind of nice at this point...
Power was still not on Day 2 of the blizzard, and I had a patented Kelly Fit™ to go home. I just couldn't take it anymore.
My brother argued back and forth about how he had a fireplace and food, but the horrible, frozen, cold death was beckoning me above the screams of the children and his wife.
He finally caved (as he always does), and took me back home. That's when I saw it. The most beautiful thing I have ever saw in my entire life.
My little doorbell button was glowing. Glowing! This means there must be electricity here!
So I get out of his truck and fail miserably when I try to do a cartwheel in the deep snow in my front yard. No worries though, because I had heat! I had water! I had electricity!
Shit. My brother wanted heat! and water! and electricity!
So just when I thought I had broken out of hell, it followed me over to my house, where it stayed for 2 more days until the power came back on at their house.
Fucking karma...
I vowed to myself that I would never be in that predicament again. I would have a big 4x4 something that would take me to Florida if it ever snowed like that again.
I scrimped and saved and bought my beautiful freedom giving SUV that next fall, and I haven't ever been stuck since.
Until these damn reports and my lack of 4x4-ness.
To make a long story even longer, my truck did end up getting fixed, we did end up getting dumped on, and we are supposed to be dumped on some more tomorrow.
And I shall be fine, because both nieces have now had chicken pox, I don't have a dog anymore, and since then I have bought myself a freakin' generator.
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