Tag Archives: blizzard

Cars, Personal Journal

Snow Foolin’: The April 1st Blizzard of 1997

As Winter Storm Juno 2015 is hitting the Northeast, I remember back to 1997 to a most improbable storm, the April Fool’s Day Blizzard.

Both my wife and I went to work, dropped my son off at daycare, and there was snow in the forecast.  Of course, we were thinking spring at this time and it was actually warm out.

The temperature dropped and the snow fell all day.

Conditions deteriorated quickly. I worked close to home and picked up my son early and came home.

My wife, unfortunately, had an hour commute on a good day and surely had a long night ahead of her.

The snow piled up fast, and four hours went by and she still had not gotten home.

She finally called me from the car and was only a few miles away but was stuck.

Damn. So close.

I called my neighbor and he came over and watched my sleeping son while I went out to get her.

I had a 4×4 pick-up and was confident that I would have no problem getting to her and bringing her home.

She was also pregnant with our second child and I was worried about her and the stressful night she was having.

I pulled off the road right past her car, and to my shock, the truck slid off the side of the road and down to a wood fence.

Shit! Fuck!

I tried going back and forth and just dug myself deeper into the deep snow.

Now we were both stuck.

I checked on my wife. She was fine, just tired.

I went to work on my truck. I tried to dig out a path to get some traction, but nothing I did helped, just brought me closer to that fence.

Finally someone came down from the house and I thought we were saved.

NOT!

This freakin’ guy was all nice and asked me my name and where I was from and then: “Do you have insurance? You’re tearing up my lawn and if you hit my fence…”

That’s when I cut him off and let him have it with a torrent of profanities that I didn’t know I was capable of.

He turned tail and said he was going to call the cops, and I screamed back at him to go ahead maybe they’ll actually help me!

I was fuming, but then someone in a truck stopped by and offered to help.

He had a towrope and proceeded to pull both of our vehicles out.

I thanked him and he promised that his friends would take the guy’s mailbox out for us.

Nice. I’ll have to drop a case of beer off for this kid.

We drove carefully home, and I think about that night every time I pass by that house.

Fathers and Sons, Mele's Musings

Sled. Gloves. Boots. Condoms. …Condoms?!

I discovered a connection between the snow on my rooftop (the white hair, not dandruff, thank you) and the blizzard swirling outside.

Here it is:

Upon learning that school would be closed, our youngest, a high school junior, was soon coming upstairs to announce that he would be spending time playing with friends in the snow.

Good, clean, outdoor fun. Yea! Great!

But when we started to explore what time he would be home and how he would get home in a raging snowstorm, plans suddenly shifted.

He was back upstairs a short time later to announce that he would be staying overnight at the house of his friend, who happens to be a girl.

And who else will be staying there, I asked, my eyebrows arching.

Oh, so-and-so, he says, naming yet another girl.

And what will be the sleeping arrangements, I ask, my eyebrows now arching in a way that would make McDonald’s envious.

Let me pause here to say that my son is an extraordinarily responsible young adult, sociable, outgoing and an excellent student. And the girls he named are likewise.

They are just a tremendous bunch of kids that any parent would be proud of.

It’s just that when it comes to his old man, my son is such a rotten kid.

Presented with the opportunity to bust my stones, he will seize it with a grip worthy of Darth Vader.

So my inquiry about the sleeping arrangements was an engraved invitation to turn my already white hair even more white.

And then, have it fall out completely.

“Oh,” he says, a big grin breaking out, “we’re all going to sleep together. There will be sex. There will be so much sex, the house will be coming apart.”

My ever-so-helpful wife (not one to let a moment like this slip by) chimed in: “They will be humping like rabbits.”

Me: “I hate you both.”

My son: “Oh yeah, no worries. I’ll be coming home with two pregnant girls.”

My wife: “Just don’t come home with herpes.”

At this point, it was hard to hear anything because I had gone face-first, up to my ears, into my bowl of oatmeal.

Then, as he’s preparing to leave and we’re going through the checklist of things that he should make sure he has for his stay, he calls out as he’s walking down the stairs:

“Hey Dad, how many condoms do you think I should bring?!”

That’s when I went bald.

Rotten kid.

I cannot imagine where he gets it from.

Like us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/AboutMenRadio.

Follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/aboutmenradio.

Have a question or a comment? Write us at amr@aboutmenshow.com