Pillow Made of Concrete

Always remember, that no matter how bad any situation is, it could always be worse, there's always someone worse off, and tomorrow could be better.

We've been fortunate to have had a mild Winter thus far this year, without so much as a dusting. Last year at this time, New York was buried under something that was beautiful to me as a child, but only represented hours of shoveling to the adult MCF. The forecast for this past Tuesday seemed more grim than it should be, and I scoffed at the Dippin' Dots piling up on my windshield during my ride home that evening. What are a few nonstick ice crystals when compared to several feet of snow? How much worse would conditions be further West in places like Illinois or Pennsylvania? Besides, it would all turn to rain and wash away, right?

There's a strange sense of Déjà Vu as we flash forward to Wednesday morning, where my dad is strongly suggesting I get up early and clean the ice off my window. I've been there, in that place and time, many times before. Why is the outcome always the same? I eat breakfast. I take my time getting ready, waiting for it to get warmer outside so my task will be easier. The snow and ice didn't amount to more than an inch or two anyway. But it's uneven, and the wind is whipping it in every direction, and there's more ice than snow. My car door is reluctant to open, pulling back as if to say, “Five more minutes. It's too cold. Let me just lie here in my space.” That too is familiar.

My car is running. The heat is on full blast, and the rear defogger is active. My window scraper is a thing of terrible beauty with an extendable brush, resembling the weapon of some rejected herald of Galactus. I'm not making a dent in the ice, and with no indication that my office is having any kind of delayed opening, desperate seconds slip through my fingers. Eventually, my wipers are free, and I've melted a small enough spot with my thumb to use my driver's side mirror. The hot wires in my rear window are no match for the ice however, and ten minutes into my commute it has accumulated and grown thick. I am in the left lane. I cannot see what's behind me. I cannot change lanes.

The roads are not plowed. There's no sign of pavement. There is only ice and dirt. It all crunches beneath my wheels, and I fishtail any time I exceed 30 MPH. As SUVs and pickup trucks speed past, kicking ice on my windshield, I ponder how the addictive slot car racing game sent to me by J-No prepared me. Slow down on those curves; speed up on the straightaways...

It shouldn't take an hour to go fifteen miles. I take even longer in the parking lot at work, kicking ice away from the ground with my sneaker, trying to find the lines of a parking space because I don't want to be one of those people. Sanity prevails as I realize that under such conditions, no one is parked between the lines. The day is spent indoors, and lunch is ordered in. By 4:30 the company, though not officially closing, sends out an advisory to leave adequate time to de-ice vehicles and be safely on our way before darkness falls.

I am alone in an office of ghosts, employee-shaped clouds of smoke still lingering as placeholders over spinning chairs. In our adjoining building, where B13 toils, his department remains diligently working. I leave my alcove to look out the window, where the sun has broken through. My friend calls, and we laugh about how people overreact to things. I've been there, in that place and time, many times before. Why is the outcome always the same?

Finally, a little after five o'clock, the silence proves too much for me. The gym is closing early, and I have no other recourse but to go home. Sadly, it feels like half a day. Outside, the parking lot isn't completely empty and I daydream about joy riding in the giant yellow bulldozer with the giant tires sitting a few feet from my car. Covered once more in ice, a thin coating made from the stuff that melted during the day, my door is even more reluctant to open than it was in the morning. This battle will require two weapons, and so I try the handheld defogger my mom insisted I take with me. Plugged in to my lighter, the bright red plastic gun doesn't seem powerful enough to melt the ice. It does prove to be a life saver used in conjunction with my cosmic scraper, though. I melt enough to create seams where the scraper can get in and go to work, while inside the car's heater fights on another front.

With the car nearly clean, I close my driver's side door. Never cooperative, it bounces back open and nearly hits me. I slam it, and once again it refuses to close. So I lock it, and push it and punch it, and this time it remains closed. I stand there proud in my stupidity for about three seconds before I realize the car is running with the key in the ignition. Classic MCF.

In an unprecedented turn of events, however, my passenger side is still open from earlier, when I put my gym bag inside. I climb in and try to unlock the driver's side door, but the lock is in a limbo between up and down, refusing to commit to either direction. I decide to cross that bridge later, and flip on my windshield wipers. Though free, they don't budge, and I realize there's another layer of ice and snow under my hood, at the very base of the wipers. This requires a combination of the handheld heater and some strategic chiseling, and I'm able to remove ice in large chunks.

I clamber back inside, over my gear shift, tumbling into my driver's seat. I'm not exactly smooth, like strawberry ice cream, but I'm where I need to be. The next obstacle is getting my car over the mound of ice plowed behind it, and navigating the still unplowed and treacherous roads for another hour long commute.

I cannot complain. People across the country had it worse. People in my area probably spent far more than an hour behind the wheel. I made it home, and by then the door thawed out and the lock worked once again, allowing me to exit in a more dignified, human fashion. We didn't get a lot of accumulation, but in many ways the mess we got instead was more challenging than a few feet of soft snow would have been.

No matter how bad any situation is, it could always be worse, there's always someone worse off, and tomorrow could be better.