How We Deal

So the entire 0.43% of the Earth’s land surface known as Saskatchewan suffered a 4-day, sideways blizzard which brought in a couple feet of snow. It blocked highways, cut power to communities, dehydrated cows and strained people’s relationships with their cars. But nothing brings otherwise indifferent humans together like being in the same boat. No car remains stuck on city road because people literally leap to push or shovel you out. It’s just standard procedure.

Speaking of which, here are the steps to successfully enter the roadway from your driveway after a snow storm.
1. Start car with remote start and let warm up for 15 minutes.
2. Get in car and back up just slightly past the neighbour’s house, snowman, tree, snow bank, etc, so that you can confirm no cars are coming from either direction.
3. Pull ahead again as far as you can.
4. Put vehicle in reverse and floor it so that you’re travelling at least 40 kmh by the time you reach the end of your driveway.
5. Plow back of car into snow shovelled onto road the night before.
6. At sidewalk, crank wheel in desired direction. This should launch the vehicle into a healthy sideways skid landing it in the middle of the road where other vehicles have bravely made tire ruts.
7. Put car in drive.
8. Get stuck.
9. Roll down window and thank neighbourhood kids for the push.
10. Continue driving.

This morning there was a guy whose truck had become stuck randomly SIDEWAYS at the end of our street. When I rolled up I got out to help push but it was a lost cause. It was a rear wheel drive pick up with no weight in the back and bald tires. He simply couldn’t get over the small bump in the packed snow that sat in front of his front tire. And he wasn’t helping because he just kept spinning his tires, creating enough friction to melt the very top of the snow which promptly refroze into smooth ice. Someone had even joined me pushing but had to leave to catch the bus. Finally he got out, flustered and agitated and started telling me about how he had been clean for the last few days in preparation for a surgery and this was the last thing he needed, “Maybe this will help.” He said jokingly, then added, “So if you see this truck abandoned later, you know where I’ll be”. The tire store, I hoped. He then grabbed the only thing he had in the back of his truck that could be used for digging which was some flimsy piece of metal siding and started hacking at the ice around his back tires. At this point I had to tell him I had to leave or I was going to be late for work. And that double-double wasn’t going to ordering itself on the way. Luckily we had pushed him back far enough for me to get around him.

Somehow, in the process of pushing his truck, I kinked my neck and can’t turn my head one way so have made a chiropractic appointment. Except I don’t like how chiropractors have turned into pussies. I liked when they used to twist you up and crack the shit out of you. Now it’s all about little baby pushes and tapping you with little plastic toys.