Ever notice how it's the little things in life that amuse us so much? More to the point, ever notice how it's the silly little idiocies in life that amuse us more than anything else? Well, this is not as much ''the little blog that could'' as it is ''the blog that enjoys going up the down escalator in your local mall.'' Will it have anything of real importance? No, probably not. But enjoy the ride never the less!

 


So in case some of you missed it, there was snow this past weekend. Lots of snow. Lots and lots of snow. This unto itself was not necessarily a terrible thing...unless you, like me, were attempting to get home in the worst parts of the storm. Let me regale you with the "le sigh" of it all. (Hey, it's either this, or you get to hear me bitching about people exploding our winterwear bunks again, and let's both be honest here: that's really getting tedious, and if I really wanted to go all-out on that sort of rant, I'd start up a MyEmoSpace account.)

Saturday evening rolled around, finding me (naturally...sadly) closing the store up at the mall. Now, knowing prior that the storm was walloping the area, Mel & I had both agreed it was better if I took the bus home. That spared her the tension on making her way to the mall, and our car in case we got: a) stuck in the snow by sliding off the road, b) stuck in the snow because someone was driving like an idiot and hit us, or c) stuck in the snow anyways because it was about a foot and a half deep by this time.

And so, I prepared for the long, cold good-night.

The trick was ensuring I could catch the right buses. The mall is on a main-drag route, and typically the ride to the bus terminal takes a half-hour. From there I'd need to catch my connecting bus, which would drop me off almost at our complex's front door. Timing was key. I caught the 6:15pm bus, figuring at best it would arrive about 6:45pm at the terminal. My connecting bus was scheduled to leave at 7:15pm, allowing me a half-hour leeway in case the mainline bus ran late.

It ran late. To his credit, the driver did quite well despite the slow going. Of course...it didn't help when we pulled up to a bus stop in front of a hospital and couldn't get out of it again. For ten minutes. A lot of seesawing back & forth and probably more burnt rubber than I cared to have smelled later, we were mobile again! Huzzah!

The mainline bus arrived at five to seven. I smiled to myself, knowing that at least I had fifteen or twenty minutes still to wait. I was a master of precision timing. I totally rocked this snow storm. And so, smug in my utter victory, I idled by the terminal doors leading out to my bus.

An hour later...the 7:15 bus arrived. I cried. A lot. Tears of joy or aggravation at the fact that it might as well have been the 8:15 bus instead remains to be seen. Thusly, a growing army of us piled onto the bus, grateful that despite the ridiculously long wait, we would at last be going home.

...and the bus got stuck in its port at the terminal. It took us twenty minutes, a hell of a lot of seesawing back & forth and enough burnt rubber stink to make me think I could see through time itself, and finally we were off. Needless to say, exasperated cheers and applause echoed for quite some time.

By now I was giddy on just wanting to get home...and probably high on the fumes...and I made the all-time boneheaded mistake of thinking: "Well, at least it can't possibly get any worse! I mean, at least there's not going to be 2-foot deep snowdrifts waiting for me!"

Ha ha haaaaaaaaaa...there was.

After a 20-minute slow drive (through an area that usually takes only 10 minutes at most in good weather), the bus doors opened up at my stop and I was presented with a 2-foot deep snow drift where the sidewalk used to be.

I cried. Again.

But with the end in sight, I sighed, steeled myself and plunged feet-first into the snow. I should mention that there was also a family of 4 behind me who also had to wade through the snow. This family--a mother and her three kids, all returning from grocery shopping--had been waiting at the bus terminal as long as I had. I can well imagine she was more frazzled than I was, since she had to kid-wrangle too.

As I tried not to think about how squishy my socks had become from all the snow filling my shoes, I heard the family's teenage son decry as he slogged through the snow, "Fuckin' hell, this is ridiculous!"

To which his mother admonished him: "Don't use that sort of language!"

To which he replied, "I know, but after the last few hours we've had, I think I deserve to say it at least once."

Quoth his mom in a beleaguered voice: "Yeah, you're right."

I laughed, and then I cried as the snow filled my socks with cold, squishy not-so-goodness. I think the most depressing part about the "wade in the snow" was that I could tell part of the sidewalks had probably been shovelled a few hours earlier. The ensuing snow and wind had just wiped that out. Four-to-five minutes of knee-deep snow later, and I was home. I was warm. Finally, I could relax and forget about all that damned snow!

And then I looked down into the eyes of my dog, and realized that Shady was telling me something: "I'm excited! You're home! I love you! I have to pee! Play with me!"

Thusly, with a song in my heart and damp toes in my shoes, I trundled back outside so Shady could romp happily through the snow and make her own mark on the storm.

And no, I didn't eat the yellow snow.

So there you have it: a long-winded prattling-on about snow. But to reward you for closely following my harrowing tale (or just scrolling down the end to see what sort of peculiar labels I've put on this time), here's a great radio interview with Cookie Monster.

I don't know what I adore more about this: Cookie's least favourite word, or the unbridled look of shock on the DJ's face when Cookie Monster eats her microphone.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/incharacter/2008/02/cookie_monster_comes_to_npr.html

Labels: cookie monster, sad baka in the snow

posted by Phillip at 8:36 AM