Diet Coke to the rescue! No, seriously.

It's officially winter in Minneapolis. No, not the Christmassy, fluffy snow, joyful, deck the hall type of winter. Its the bitter cold, ruin your day, kill you if you get stuck outside kind of winter. I'm not complaining. I've lived in cold-ish places my whole life, so I'm used to doing the whole permanent sweater/scarf/mittens look. In fact, I enjoy the fact that I have so many accessory options to choose from when dressing myself each day. I've never really had a bad or even sketchy run-in with the weather until this weekend. And once again, my addiction to diet coke saved my life...well, kinda.

The day (Saturday) started off great. Okay. That's not entirely true. I had to get up at 7:30 (which is an hour that doesn't exist in my life) in order to drive with Ben, Ryan and Rachel to St. Paul to watch the Metropolitan Opera auditions. It was awesome, as always. I've always thought that their whole process is just fascinating and I am so glad that they have the experience open to the public. I've gone every year for the past five or so and it is always fantastic. This year was especially cool. First, because I was with some of my favorite people and second because I haven't had (the opportunity) to sit through hours of arias in a few months and hearing that type of music again was surprisingly lovely. We stayed for the first eight singers or so and then decided we'd had enough and went to get some lunch. Eating with these people is always an experience and we had a great time. After parting ways, I took a nap and then joined Ben and Clara to see Harry Potter (for the third time....whoops). It seemed like the day was winding to a close until we walked outside the movie theater into the freezing rain.

EFF.

It was awful. The perfect combination of rain, sleet and a temperature that hovered right around thirty degrees. I drove Ben and Clara back to Ben's place where I planned on staying the night. We got settled in, but try as I might, I could not get to sleep. I tossed and turned for an hour or so and then after looking out the window and seeing that the rain had stopped, I decided it would not be that difficult for me to drive home. I mean, it was only about eight miles. What could go wrong?

I walked outside into the frigid air and slid across the street to my car. It was parked on a bit of an incline, facing up the hill. After a few minutes of letting the engine warm up, I tried pulling out. With the tires whirring beneath me, the car started sliding backward. I threw the car back into park. Crap. (That's not exactly what I said, but I'm trying to keep this blog rated PG) I spent the next forty minutes looking like a totally insane person in front of Ben's house. I scraped at the icy road with my window scraper, I threw snow and dirt under the tires to try and get traction, I tried to drive with two of my wheels on the curb. Nothing worked. Finally, I decided to back into the driveway and try my luck at going downhill (genius, I know). It worked. It was slippery as hell, but I pumped the brakes all the way through the neighborhood and eventually made it out on to Central Avenue. The road itself was fairly empty....if you don't count the dozens of cars parked on the side of the road with their emergency lights blinking. At this point, I admitted to myself that this was probably one of the stupidest things I'd ever done, but there was no way I could turn around and go back to Ben's. That would be admitting defeat. And I am and Minnesotan. I can handle a little ice. Puh-lease.

I went the two miles north on Central until I got to the on-ramp for 694 West. I was going around the curve to the right when I realized that there were about a dozen cars stopped at the top of the ramp. I quickly saw that most of them were spinning their wheels in an attempt to get to the top of the ramp and the highway, but were unable to due to the quarter inch of slick ice on the ground. I forged ahead. Halfway up the hill. Three fourths of the way. One hundred yards left! And then my car lost its grip on the road. It started sliding sideways and I quickly parked it with one of the back tires on the curb. I looked ahead to the cars in similar situations and saw a few guys getting out. I joined them and together we pushed six of the cars to the top of the ramp and they went on their merry way. During the half an hour that I was on the ramp, three cars exiting the freeway crashed into the ditch less than 30 yards from where my car was. No one was hurt, but the cars were clearly stranded.

Finally it was my turn. I returned to the drivers seat of my Toyota and pulled my Luther scarf tightly around my neck to fend off the frosty air and tried to pull back onto the ramp. Nothing. I got out and to my horror....well that sounds a little dramatic.....umm.....dismay, I saw that the misting rain had frozen around the base of my tires, creating little grooves that held the car in place. I thought I was screwed. I went to my trunk to see if I had anything useful. Nothing. About a dozen binders of musical theater. What am I going to do with those? Belt/mix the ice off the wheels? And then I saw it. A two-liter of Diet Coke. I reached for it and since it was right next to the heater, it was very warm. I gingerly walked to the front of my car, twisted off the cap and started to pour the coke around my tires. Slowly but surely, the ice melted away just enough for me to rock my car out of its icy grave and back onto the ramp.

After helping two other cars back down in reverse onto Central, I followed suit and tried to figure out my next move. I didn't know any other way to get home besides the highways. Then I glanced across the median and saw that the on-ramp to 694 for the southbound side of Central was not nearly as steep as the one I had just left. I pulled an illegal u-turn and finally made it onto the freeway. There were only a few cars in sight and they were all going about 12 mph. Then in my rearview mirror, I saw a car coming up behind me very quickly. It was in my lane and was going probably around 30mph. When it got close enough, its blinker turned on and it attempted to pass me on the right. As soon as the tires started to turn, it went completely sideways and began sliding and spinning towards my car. I was panicked, but didn't want to turn my car and risk meeting a similar fate. The car behind me spun within ten feet of the drivers side of my vehicle and smashed into the median. By that time, I had reached the exit for 252 north. I slowly slid down to the stoplight where I was joined by two cars; one on my right and one on the left. We waited for the light to turn green and when it did, the car on my left took off too fast and slid into the grassy ditch by the median. The car on my right started slowly, but as it was pulling into the middle of the intersection, a minivan that couldn't stop came from the right and t-boned it. I slowly maneuvered around the wrecks and continued until I got to 85th. I only had another mile to go, but it took me about 12 minutes to get home.

When I finally got to my house, I tried pulling into the driveway, but the ice was too thick. I grabbed some glasses from the kitchen and filled them with hot water. I splashed them down the driveway and it was just enough to get my car into the garage. I went immediately to bed, but still could feel the sensation of the car losing traction beneath me. In total, it took me 2 hours and 20 minutes to go 8 miles and after watching the news, there were a record number of accidents that night due to the ice.

I don't plan on defying nature again anytime soon, in case you're wondering. And yes, I do realize that I am a total idiot. But all's well that ends well, right? ;]

STAY WARM.

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