Out Here, We Use a Swimming Pool For De-Icing Purposes

This is the reason I have had an 11-day weekend from school since last Thursday. Road conditions are bad in Backroads. Still. Oh, the main thoroughfares are clear enough. But the back roads of Backroads are not.

Hick has been driving on borrowed time, in a $1000 Caravan. He's not one to listen to the voice of reason, which we all know is Val's voice. Nope. Gotta drive the backroadsiest back roads in Backroads, that one. Thinks he's invincible. I must admit, he's never had a weather-related accident (knock on my laminated faux-wood butcher-block countertop laminate that Hick lovingly installed as a built-in desk in my dark basement lair). He refuses to take the highway all the way from work to town, then out the main drag to our county road. Hick takes a short cut. I don't know how he's made it so far.

This afternoon, Hick called at 4:24. I assumed he was just leaving work. There's a wide window of departure time, Hick not being one to punch a time clock. But no. He was calling from the bottom of our hill, a scant half-mile from home. "I can't get up the hill. Neighbor lady is here, too. And she just lives at the top of the hill. We're stuck. It's solid ice. Some guy has gone to get ashes. He said he'd be right back."

"I don't know what I can do for you." That did not mean I couldn't drive almost a half-mile and bring him home. There was the matter of the $1000 Caravan. After 15 minutes, I called him back. "Do you want me to drive down and pick you up? Or have The Pony throw a bale of hay into T-Hoe?" Hay. I saw that yesterday when I went to town to get one of Hick's presents. The farm and home center had thoughtfully broken open a bale of hay and scattered it over the ice spots on the parking lot. No salt for them. Of course I couldn't mention to Hick how I knew this might work, because then he would know that I went to buy the only gift he has requested.

"No. I'm getting ready to try it now." About ten minutes later he arrived home. Then I got the full story.

Neighbor Lady had tried to get up that hill in her four-door sedan. She drives it all the time. We've both been getting in and out with no trouble, up and down that solid sheet of hill ice. That's because we're used to it. Plus, I have four-wheel drive. Then today's storm rolled in around noon. It was 34 degrees when we left, and 31 degrees when we got back. I told The Pony I was worried about freezing rain, because that will zap our power. Anyhoo...back to the story of the ice hill.

Neighbor Lady had driven to the city to pick up her son from college. He's Genius's age. She also had her other son, The Pony's age, with her. They had done the grocery shopping, and were just getting home. Almost. She got her sedan kind of sideways on the winding gravel ice hill. Hick came along, and decided he would just go around her. He only made it halfway up. His trusty $1000 Caravan with its two-year-old snow tires started to slide backwards down the hill. As Hick said, "So I put it in the ditch and parked it. Then I walked up to the top, with her boys, who were supposed to get some salt. When we walked back down, the ash guy was there. He had a kid's swimming pool full of ashes from his outside wood furnace. They were still hot. He scattered them, and the boys spread out salt. Neighbor Lady's husband was there by then, and he was walking up to get his truck. I rolled the Caravan back down, and made it to the top."

Seriously. They should have sold tickets. Strewn about on that little section of road were a four-door sedan, a $1000 Caravan, a truck with a swimming pool full of ashes, and a panel work van. All they needed was a clown car.

Three to five inches tonight. I hope Genius makes it home tomorrow. It would be so sad if he got within a half mile, and had to live in a van down by the river until time to leave for spring semester.