She
woke up feeling strangely refreshed and rejuvenated. Stretching, she strolled to the back door of
her house and opened it wide, causing the icicles and mounds of snow to fall
off the roof and avalanche at her feet.
“Ahhh….”
She breathed in that fresh -10°F air.
Nothing beats blizzard weather, she thought to herself.
She
ate her breakfast seated on top of her frozen picnic table as she listened to
her favorite morning radio show. “We
barely made it to the studio today, under pain of termination…. This just in:
the voluntary stay-off-the-roads is now mandatory due to the governor declaring
a state of emergency. You’re telling us
this now?!” She turned the radio off at
that point – she hated it when things got political.
After
a brisk brushing-off of a foot of snow from her car, followed by an
invigorating shoveling out of her driveway, she was ready to go. The roads oddly were barely plowed at all,
but that’s what four-wheel drive was made for.
First stop: town hall, where she had to dispute her property taxes, yet
again.
The
parking lot was an eerie sea of white when she arrived and hers was the only
car. Perhaps everyone took a healthy
walk to work today, she thought as she tried to open the locked entrance. The building’s remaining doors were in the
same condition, and no amount of banging on windows or throwing snowballs at walls
got anyone’s attention. Surely their
work ethic wasn’t that poor that absolutely no one would come in to run the
town today? That kind of thinking leads
to anarchy.
Since
official business was now a bust, she decided to take advantage of the mall’s
super sales and headed that way. She arrived
an hour later than the normal commute took, after being pulled over three times
with each cop kept insisting that no businesses were open and that she needed
to go home. She agreed with them so they’d
leave, but she knew in her heart that they were mistaken: the mall never closed
during super sales!
The
same sight that greeted her at town hall also greeted her at the mall: a sea of
white, no cars, and locked doors. She felt
a bit put out – if she could make it there when it was snowing sideways and ice
was forming on her face, why could no one else in the world demonstrate the
same ability?
It
was getting late and the show at the local playhouse was scheduled to start
soon, so she decided to forego driving back home to change into non-snow
clothes and went straight to the theater instead, collecting two citations on
the way and threats of arrest for her continual commutation. Honestly, such a fuss over a few flurries,
she mused as she strapped on her snowshoes to walk to the theater from the
mini-mountain where she had parked her car.
Since no one was there to open the door for her admission to the show,
she was forced to come to the conclusion that the play had been cancelled due
to lack of attendance. Hopefully, she
would be reimbursed for this: after all, she was there; she couldn’t
help it if no one else was.
Back
home after another citation and a police escort, she comforted herself in spite
of her unproductive day by re-shoveling the driveway’s new two feet of snow and
knocking the ice out of the roof’s eaves.
My word, she mused as she watched the trees and neighboring houses sway
in the howling wind while she drank her tea in the kitchen and the power went
out, people really do push the panic button much too frequently to get anything
done around here.
