This is a throwback post from an old blog - originally from December 20, 2010
Enjoy.

Earlier this week, something terrible descended upon the small little state of Delaware. Something disastrous, menacing and murderous.

Snow.

Now, just for clarification purposes, the lovely residents of the First State are a pretty resilient and hearty group of people. Delaware is beaten up by hurricanes, floods and the occasional rogue tornado. A little rain never hurt anyone... but when the stuff freezes the whole state goes into a emergency frenzy.

It all started on a chilly day earlier in the week. It was just below freezing outside, (which of course sent my coworkers into a frostbitten panic and everyone was piling on scarves, goggles, mittens, waterproof earmuffs, thermal underwear, arctic gear and boots, wondering how they would ever survive) and there were “rumors” of flurries later in the afternoon.

Having spent the past four years of my life in the mountains of central Pennsylvania, snow doesn’t even cause a glimmering hint of excitement or even a reaction at all. I spent so many days and nights lugging my butt around in 12 inches of snow uphill both ways that I considered building snowshoes out of my roommate’s tennis rackets or crafting a sled out of cookie sheets to get myself to work.

(There you go, kids. I just proved that it IS possible to walk uphill both ways. So HAH!)

Anyway, snow doesn’t stop me. I will push my car out of that snowbank the mean plow truck driver created around my car. I’ve done it once dammit and I’ll do it again.

So I did not give it a second thought when it started to snow lightly outside the classroom window.

I knew something was terribly wrong when I stopped by the office later in the afternoon to find several frantic parents demanding to take their children home early.

Expecting to see apocalyptic blizzard conditions outside, I rushed to the window to see… light flurries.

Confused and annoyed, I finished my day at work and we dismissed the children at regular time. 

HOWEVER, many of the buses were “stuck in severe traffic” and weren’t even at the school yet. I snuck out the side door expecting, once again, the apocolypse blizzard I kept hearing about and found… flurries.

About 1/3 of an inch of snow had accumulated on my windshield. I was pissed. This was no fun at all.

But I had no idea the fear that the 1/3 of an inch had struck into the little hearts of the Delawareans.

First of all, no one in Delaware has ever heard of road salt. Dear DelDot, if you ever read this: Salt MELTS snow! It’s really cool. If you put in on the road it will make the snow go away and stuff. It even makes ice melt too! You can drive on the road again and its probably a lot cheaper than all those costly sled dogs, sleighs and flying cars you were considering as solutions. It’s a really brilliant invention.

After driving 0.4 miles an hour to get out of the parking lot and onto the main road, I decided that I was adventurous enough to drive uphill in the apocalyptic blizzard. WRONG! A man in an SUV had tried the hill, panicked, blocked the road and got OUT of his car. So I did the only reasonable thing: I spun my car around and tried the other way.

The next few minutes were filled with sheer terror as drivers slid all over the road, losing control and hitting curbs and innocent recyclable bins. For some reason as soon as the rain froze into snow, people who have been driving for 20+ years turned into intoxicated teenagers. It took me 20 minutes to make the corner to get onto the main road. At times I considered getting out of my car and knocking on windshields to show people how to get their cars off the sides of the street.


But it was nice and toasty in my car so I turned on Top 40 radio and daydreamed about Christmas.

The flurries continued to fall and the drivers of Delaware continued to panic. As we crept along Route 41 at 3.12 mph, I watched Mercedes’ slide into ditches and BMW’s skid into yards. A man going the other direction lost control of his vehicle and slid completely around in a circle (He thought he was hot stuff and tried to hit 4 mph). People got out of their minivans and pushed other cars back onto the road. People started walking home. People started pulling over and calling for other transportation (sled dogs, probably). The air filled with smoke and the smell of burning rubber. All adherence to traffic signals was lost (RED LIGHTS??? WE DON’T USE RED LIGHTS IN THE APOCALYPSE BLIZZARD!!!!!!! WE DON’T NEED TURN SIGNALS ANYMORE!) and children cried for their mothers.*

It took me 2 hours to get home. It normally takes me 20 minutes with traffic.

The last bus pulled out of the school at 6:10 PM. School dismisses at 3:50.

Lesson of the day: Road salt solves a lot of problems. Delaware is only 37 ft wide by 429 ft long so if we all donate about 5.3 cents the cost should be covered.

At any rate, I’m going to go drink some tea and review survival skills for the real apocalyptic blizzard.

*NOTE: I didn’t see anyone get hurt. This wouldn’t be funny if people got hurt.