A Day In The Life

How long it had been snowing, I couldn't even remember any longer. The endless days of white were blurring together. The snow always held such awe and wonder for me. A clean, white blanket that seemed to slow the whole world down and muffle the sounds of everyday life. Growing up in the South we did not have snow days. Little did we know what we were missing. Of course we heard of snow days. With great envy we would imagine what those days were like. Days where children sat by the television or radio and waited with breath held to hear their school announced. And the joy that must have instilled in them when the announcement finally came over the air your school is closed. A day without books, tests, a day that you could legally skip and play outside, watch TV all day or just be lazy. Snow does not hold the same excitement I find in adults as it does in the young. I first saw snow at the age of 15. I was speechless. How beautiful those Colorado Mountains looked covered in white. The bite of the cold air, the blinding white making even the night bright. It was magical, powerful and beautiful.



As the years went on I never lost my sense of wonder for the frozen beauty until perhaps today. The snow had been falling for days and it felt like God himself was cleaning Heaven out of all of it. As I sit in the car all I see is snow. No cars are passing, no animals have wandered by. Everything is still, quiet and for the first time ominous. Will I die in this car surrounded by nothing but white?



The trip had gone well. My car running great, giving me nothing to worry about. As I drove I knew the mountain pass was coming up. No matter what the weather below the mountains were on weather pattern all their own. It is, for lack of a better phrase, a crap shoot going through the Adirondacks in the winter. At three in the morning there is next to no traffic and the wind howls like something begging to be freed. As I began the accent into the mountains I noticed that new snow coated the roadways with more falling at a steady rate. As I drove I did my best to keep my speed down, wipers on high and the radio cranked up to keep my nerves calm. After the initial accent the road begins to curve in a switchback kind of way. Meandering is probably more like it but the constant curving back and forth can get unnerving in a snowstorm. As time went on I began to notice my little car was having more and more trouble getting through the ever mounting snow on the road. As we all know when you first began to panic crazy ideas race through your head. Should I turn around, stop and wait it out? Trying to use logic I decided that turning around was not the best of ideas when I couldn't see either direction on a divided highway and stopping, well if I ever came to an overpass that may be an option but so far nothing. As I tried to figure out exactly what I had in the trunk to use to survive I remembered a show I had seen recently suggesting everyone should make a winter emergency kit and put it in their car. Wow, guess I should have actually moved from the thinking phase to the actual doing phase of that advice. I think in the trunk I had an old T-Shirt, an extra pair of sneakers and the spare tire. Not helpful at all. Alright time for a new plan. Having been on a diet for the last few weeks my purse didn't even have a candy bar in it.













Had I been with my best friend she would have had candy in her purse. Great, I thought, I'm going to die of hunger but they will all see how much weight I have lost. I never used to go anywhere without, at a minimum, a bag of M&M's in my purse. I really don't know exactly what happened next as I mused over my lack of food and warm blankets but the little car shuddered, spun to the right and flung herself off the side of the shoulder and into the ditch nose first. All this happened in such slow motion, that at first I wasn't even sure it really did happen. Then looking out my windshield all I saw was the snow covered ground. Wonderful I thought, not only did I run off the road, I am nose down in the snow and soon my taillights will be covered in snow and no one will see me.



They say desperate times call for desperate measures well I was desperate but couldn't come up with one desperate measure to help myself. I often wonder who comes up with these little words of wisdom. Obliviously they are not smack in the middle of an emergency when they come up with this useless dribble. After checking the glove compartment, the contents of my purse and the back seat I had come up with seven pieces of gum, two tic tacs and a pair of gloves. I put on the gloves, popped a piece of gum in my mouth and mused over my situation. I had more than half a tank of gas so I could turn the car on and off running the heater occasionally to stave off hypothermia and I really didn't know how long I could survive on sugar free gum and tic tacs but I really didn't think it was very long. To add insult to injury the little car was pointed downward and getting comfortable in that position was next to impossible. I carefully climbed into the back seat to see if I could make myself more comfortable only to find that in this position no matter how I sat I was leaning forward. This is the story of my life anything that can happen will happen and I will have it happen in the worst possible way. Sitting, leaning forward I tried to think of a way out of my most recent predicament and came up short. Watching the snow falling on the windows and listening to the wind howl I wondered what people would say about me after my death. Would anyone cry, miss me; feel they lost a great friend or lover? I was sad to think that I just wasn't sure if anyone would. How sad would it be I wondered if no one showed up to my funeral? As I thought this over I realized that I really had very few friends in my life. Was I just picky about whom I called my friend or was I just someone that people were not naturally drawn to? I was sad to think that I just wasn't sure. Funny how your world slows down when you get into such situations. I guess on some level I really didn't believe that I would die. Do we ever really think we are going to die? I have never been in such a position before so if this was it I was taking it all pretty nonchalantly I thought. I will admit I did not want to be found dead and have the entire town saying things like, "Didn't she see that special on TV about having emergency supplies in your car? She would be alive today if she had done those things." Maybe I should leave a note. "Yes I did see that special, I just never got around to actually packing the darn emergency kit." Funny how my main concern seemed to be focused on not looking the fool at my death than the actual possibility of dying.













It was getting close to sunrise and I had not heard nor seen another vehicle drive by. I decided to risk life and limb and climb out of the car. The wind-chill when I left at midnight had been below zero and it didn't feel much warmer as I pushed my entire weight against the car door to get it open. Again I cursed the diet I felt I needed. I could have had extra weight to push against the door, candy in my purse, and more body fat to live off of. Live and learn I thought and kept pushing. Finally the door gave way and the wind blew in like a cold hand from the grave. I stepped outside and was blinded by the white all around me. Except for the wind there was silence. No birds singing, no cars whizzing by, nothing just deathly quiet. How appropriate I thought. I never wanted a lot of noise when I died. I used my coat and pushed off as much of the snow from my car as I could and made sure to uncover the taillights as I wanted to be sure something other than white was showing if someone came whizzing by on their way to work. As the snow whirled around me I laughed to myself. Work, who are you kidding; no one in their right mind would drive this road today just to go to work. A snow day that was what today was. I had finally gotten one and I just wanted it to be over. I no longer wanted to know what a snow day felt like. I wanted this to just be another ordinary day in my life. A day in the life of nobody, doing nothing out of the ordinary. As I climbed back into the car I took a long look into the snow and prayed for a miracle.



The day soon became a boring routine of turning on the engine for heat, the radio for distraction and news, and the wipers to see the world outside my metal coffin. I wasn't surprised when I was not mentioned as missing on the local news. No one knew I had left so early. I began to make a list of all the mistakes that led to my present situation. It may sound morbid but it actually helped me see where I had gone wrong and how I really had no one to blame for my situation but myself. As nightfall approached I checked my meager food stash. I had no tic tacs left and two pieces of gum. I vowed then and there if I got out of this alive the first thing I was going to do was make that emergency pack and put it in my trunk and candy would be on the list of things to pack. If I am going to be in a life and death struggle I want chocolate, one more mistake to add to my every growing list.



As darkness came I checked my gas gauge. It read below a quarter of a tank. As I am so fond of saying, "Not Good!" Well soon I would be forced to really make some hard choices. I only hoped that by morning the snow would stop, traffic would drive by and I would be rescued. Laughing at my own wishful thinking I decided to add another mistake to my list to help me stay awake. Not having a full tank of gas when I headed out. The list just kept getting longer. I have seen in so many movies that when you are cold you need to stay awake. As I watched these movies I would scream at the poor freezing saps "Stay Awake, Stay Awake!" How hard can it be to stay awake one night to save your own life? Little did I know the colder you get the harder it is to stay awake. I constantly found myself nodding off.







Luckily for me the steep angle of the car meant every time I nodded off I would pitch forward, hit my head on the back of the front seat which would inevitably wake me from my snoozing. That may have just saved my life as I had no one to scream at me to stay awake but was working on one heck of a lump on my forehead.



Night seems to fly by for us humans. We head to bed and peacefully sleep six to eight hours of darkness away. For me the night seemed never ending. The combination of the darkness, the cold and my own fears made the few hours seem like a lifetime. I began to imagine all kinds of strange noises outside of my little car. I wondered would wolves hunt in this weather. Are there bears here this close to humans? I didn't know and really didn't want to know. I waited through the night for some type of deliverance. Whether it is divine or not I wanted to finally be freed of my situation. I see now, how someone can welcome death. You can actually get to a point where even death seems better than the situation you have gotten yourself into.



The hours dragged on. I used the heater in the car less and less to conserve fuel and relied on balling up in my coat and blowing into my gloved hands. I would not recommend freezing as a way to die. If you are making a list as I was on the best ways to die do not put freezing to death on it. It ranks right up there with drowning as the worst ways to die. I think I would pick getting hit by a bus first. Freezing to death attacks the body with piercing needles of pain and destroys the brain slowly so you are aware that you are losing your mind. Just what I always wanted, to lose my mind and know it was happening. Great! By the time the sun came up that morning I was sick of chewing gum, was sure I had large wads of it clogging up my intestines and my brain and limbs were moving at such a slow pace that finding the door handle had become nearly impossible. My brain had become foggy and I found that my fingers just would not move. I bent my hand at the wrist with my fingers refusing to obey. As I sat there trying to come up with a way to get myself out of this mess I heard an air horn. A tractor trailer was coming up over the pass and I had no way to open the door and wave. I began to laugh thinking about the old show Gilligan's Island and all the ways they had come up with to try to get rescued. I realized that with my brain moving so slowly I didn't think I had the capacity to come up with even one semi-good idea. Soon I heard the tires of the truck whiz by throwing snow and sleet in all directions. Not hearing it slow down I knew my car was completely covered in snow and probably just looked like one more, white lump on the side of the road. I had very few options left to me. I knew I had to either get as much snow off of my blue car to get noticed or get the taillights uncovered so I could turn on the flashers as cars went by. The question was how to get the door open with hands, fingers and a brain that were all to cold to work.

















I came up with another one of those useless phrases I had heard so many times before. Necessity is the mother of invention. Alright I was in great need so what could I invent that would get the door open in place of my hands and fingers. I had absolutely no idea. I could hear it now. Front page of the local newspaper, "Had she ONLY...she would be alive today." I hate it when I read things like that. Some poor sap managed to have every bad thing happen to them and they are going to point out what they could have done to save themselves. Do they realize that just maybe they were in a life and death struggle and might not be thinking to clearly? Well I was not going to be one of those poor saps so I tried to think like McGyver and finally came up with an idea. After much hunting I found my hairbrush at the bottom of my purse.







I somehow managed to wedge the handle of the hairbrush down through the handle of the car door. Slipping my wrist down between the door and the top of the hairbrush I was able to pull the handle and push the door open with my legs. Pushing the built up snow against the door proved to be more of a workout than my frozen body was prepared for. It took most of the morning to work the door open far enough to slide out but once outside I realized the snow had stopped, the sun was out and the world was starting to look normal again. With the sun melting the snow on the roadway I was able to see that my car really had not veered to far off the roadway and if I could get most of the snow off I would be seen by a passerby. I again began the exhausting task of clearing my car of snow and ice. Having thought out this entire process in the back seat as I fought with the door I had come up with the idea of clearing the taillights first just in case I did not have the energy to clear the rest of the car. At least I could turn on the emergency flashers. I laughed to myself as I heard the reporter in my head mumble to himself that it was one mistake I had not made that led to my demise. As I cleared away the snow the mere site of my brake lights gave me hope. This pile of white no longer looked like a mound of nothing. True it somewhat looked like a white mound with angry red eyes but even that was something to take a second look at. As I continued to clear the snow the dark blue of my car's paint began to appear. I always loved this little car. Her dark blue always shined and I made sure she was washed and waxed as a proper thank you for getting me back and forth safely everyday. I began to talk to her as I cleared the snow. I felt as bad for her as I did for myself. How cold she must be under her blanket of white. I knew at this point I had clearly lost my mind from the cold but I continued to clear the snow from her. I felt I owed her that much after keeping me safe all this time she deserved to be freed. As I removed the snow I heard the sound of tires on pavement. As I slowly turned around I saw a pickup heading our way. The will to survive I realized runs strong and deep in all of us. As the pickup rolled to a stop in front of my little car I turned to her, patted her taillight, smiled and said thank you for giving me another day in my life.