As we say goodbye to Halloween, hello to Thanksgiving and "OMG I have to start Christmas shopping!?", we Kuckelman's have been busy little bees getting ready for THE SNOW. Yes, we know it's coming. Last night Tim and I sat with our mouths gaping open, not breathing, watching the news report about the 8 inches of snow Minneapolis got overnight. Now, Minneapolis is not far away from us, five hours driving, an hour flight. This was a sign, not from the gods, but from hell, as in, "when hell freezes over". Now this isn't the first time we've seen people shoveling snow and scraping ice off their car windows. We've seen plenty of video of cars sliding on icy highways and watched something called "snow-blowers" on our TV screens from the warmth and comfort of our California house. But this time, it was different---this was happening in Minneapolis, yes--but in a matter of weeks, this will be us.
Last week we bought a new 4-wheel drive car, which I'm under the impression is nothing short of a tank and will protect me and my children from all dangerous driving conditions. (here's where you laugh). I had to take said new car back to the dealer to have a remote start installed. What is that you ask? It's a cute little remote control button that when you push it, your car automatically starts, without you in it. This is very popular out here, and soon I'll appreciate how neat a remote start really is--like when I'm pushing a 75-pound grocery cart from store to parking lot in a blizzard. That little button will magically warm up my car, inside and out, and literally save my life. (it won't, however, unload my bags--pronounced "bee-aggs", remember---into said car. I will still get covered in snow and my ears will freeze).
When I took the car in, I got a "loaner" car to drive. This loaner car belonged to the dealership, but was being driven by the salesman. He gave me the keys, and as I opened the door to get in, there was a very strange contraption in the back seat. It was a long, red stick, about 3 feet long, with a little squeegee thingy on one end. Next to it lay a pair of heavy winter gloves. Hmmm, I marveled to myself, what an interesting thingamajig. "....wonder what the heck that thing is!" I chuckled to myself and dismissed it as a "guy" thing, you know, some sort of stupid "guy" tool.
It came to me watching the news last night when I saw that some poor shmuck was using a long, red stick exactly like the one in my back seat!! He was scraping the ice off his car windows, and I swear it looked like he was getting a really intense workout. I was quickly adding up how many calories he might be burning, and thought, hmmm, maybe I can skip the gym if this happens to me. But then I thought, Oh My God, am I going to have to scrape ice off my car windows???? Add this to the list of things I thought I would never do.
And going the hardware store to buy one of these stupid ice scrapers is definitely on that list.
Our neighbors have been bugging us to get our own SnowBlower. Yeah, right, like we're REALLY going to go out at 5 am and blow our own snow off our driveway?? Pssshh right!! Not the California Kuckelman's!! Yes, we are smarter than that, silly Wisconsinites. We hired someone to do it for us!!! Yay!!! So, as we sleep, the Snow Blower Fairy will come to our humble abode and nicely get rid of all annoying and misplaced snow for us!! Ain't that amazing??? I am deeply grateful.
We had our first foray into snow last night, as we got what's called "snow flurries". Now, these are nothing like the McFlurry's you get at McDonald's. They are so NOT like McFlurry's, I honestly have no idea why they are called that. Jennifer and I got SO excited when we found out we were going to have "Snow Flurriess" we did a happy little dance around the kitchen. Then we realized we had no idea what "snow flurries" were so we had to Google "snow flurries" to find out.
It had been a cold rainy night when said Flurries were due, so with baited (and possibly garlic) breath, we kept gazing out the front door hoping for a glimpse. Yes!!! Finally said Flurries were falling from the sky!! We ran out the front door and did another little happy dance and hugged as we experience our very first snow together. I ran back into the house screaming, "IAN!!! COME QUICK!!! IT'S SNOWING!!!" Ian struts his manly strut towards the door in his usual outfit of wife-beater shirt and shorts, barefoot, and takes one look out the front door and grunts, "That's not real snow", annoyed, and turns and goes back in the house. Jennifer and I were nonplusssed and continued our happy Flurry dance. There weren't enough flurries to make any snowballs, and so we got bored and went inside too.
There's no snow in the immediate forecast, but that's good cuz it gives me time to accept that I've got to go buy a thingamajig-ice-scraper-thingy. And, actually hand over money for it, and keep it in my backseat.
Just in case.
No comments:
Post a Comment