Snow My God

Ah, the scenes of winter.

This kind of thing happens every winter. There's alway a horror story. What else would we do the rest of the year in Maine if not complain about winter?

I came out to move my car because there's a parking ban tonight. This is what downtown living is like in winter. No big deal. There's a huge city-owned parking area a block from the house. I'll just amble to the car and pull it down the hill.

Today, my car was almost immobilized and unable to make that drive.

You could see the flashing blue police lights before you could see anything wrong on Park Street, the road next to my house. There was one police SUV at the bottom of the hill because a woman's car had veered to the left, gone over the sidewalk and taken out a possibly-decorative fire call box. Portland: We're quaint.

Higher up the hill, there was a second police cruiser behind my car. I could see a sedan had jumped about halfway across a sidewalk; I just wasn't sure if he'd hit me. I came around the back of the sedan and immediately took my only picture of the afternoon. The guy's car missed my car by about 2 inches. His side mirror was sheared off, most likely because of the back of my vehicle.

I went around my car from the right (there was no going around the left side), and got to the driver's door. That's when I realized the driver was still in the car. I gave an awkward little wave and unlocked my door.

A kid – I've noticed my definition of "kid" keeps getting older and older – of about 20 years old hops out of the driver's seat and starts apologizing.

"I was going, like, 10 mph around the turn and my car just slid out," the kid said. "It was going at your car so I tried to steer around it. I'm sorry, man."

"It's fine. You didn't do any damage. Are you all right?" I asked.

"Yeah, yeah. Triple A is coming. I'm fine."

After confirming my car was fine, I started brushing off the car. A city snow plow creeped down the street, spreading salt that was badly needed 20 minutes before. I fired up the Mazda Tribute and pulled into the city lot. Wow. My afternoon could have gone a lot differently.

What if he'd hit the Tribute? It has nearly 200,000 miles on it. Somebody ripped the front grill off last summer. But it's never had anything go seriously wrong in 10.5 years. It would be nice if it kept going for a few more years.

I got out of the car and walked back past the hill on my way to work. A cop was giving the woman who hit the fire call box some kind of ticket. The AAA truck had showed up for the kid at the top of the hill.

Winter just sucks some days. I feel that way about summer, too, when it's hot and humid and there are people From Away clogging the town. But my dog doesn't get road salt stuck in her paws in summer. My feet aren't constantly half-numb in summer. My car doesn't almost get totaled in summer.

People say to me, "you're from Minnesota; you should be used to winter." It's true, I should know how to deal with it. And I deal with it. I wear all the proper gear. I have choppers for my hands. I can drive in snow. It's fine. But after 38 winters, I'm starting to wonder what it would look like to live in a place with a little more tame weather. Call me a wimp, but I'm just getting tired of the drama.