First Snow of the Season

 

The "S" word had been in the forecast for several days.  However, I wasn't worried.  They said that it would be snow much further north of us and we would get rain.  (Or at least that's how I interpreted it).  We didn't get rain.  (Well, maybe we got a little.)  We got snow yesterday.  It snowed on and off, in varying degrees of intensity, for most of the day yesterday.

For the most part it didn't stick.  My son wanted to go out last night and I was not very keen on the idea.  I had already blocked his car in with mine.  However, another friend was willing to drive (who has about the same amount of experience as my son).  I wasn't thrilled about the idea, but I let him go.  And I have to say I was relatively pleased that he was  home a half an hour BEFORE when I had asked him to be home.  (All too often he is late.)  Furthermore, he said that they had noticed that the conditions were getting worse, so they decided to call it a night.  (Is that the full story?  Was there more to it?  I will never know.)  I was impressed.  This was the right call to make; not one that I necessarily expect teens to make.

This morning I woke up to a dusting of snow on the ground.  Mostly it was on the grass, but the cars were coated, which is never something I want to see in the morning.  Even if I loved the snow (and I don't), I don't think cleaning off the car in the cold is anyone's idea of a fun early Monday morning exercise.

I was pleasantly surprised (again) when my son got up relatively quickly after his alarm went off.  (Usually he turns off the alarm and lies around, groaning, as I remind him of the time.)  He asked that my husband start the coffee a little earlier so he could have a cup before he brushed off his car.

My husband did just that and then went out to clear off my car.  He took longer than I expected.  Which is why I went out (with the still bum leg/knee) to help.  It was then that I realized it was an ice/snow combo.  While he had scrapped off my of the ice (and moved on to my son's car), my windshield wipers were frozen.  So, I did the logical thing, I turned the defroster onto  high and did some more ice/snow removal until the wipers started moving and I was able to back out of the driveway and park on the street so my son could get out.

My husband finished with my son's car and we went back in for coffee.  Meanwhile, my son (in his winter coat, but no gloves) went out to finish the job.  Again he was out there for a longer time than I expected and I poked my head out to tell him that he should turn on the car to make his job easier.  His response?  He  had the car on for a bit, but didn't want to waste gas (when did he get responsible?).  He came back in, grumbling (somewhat understandably) about how much ice there was, that he needed gloves and that he might not get to his first class on time.  (His first class 4 days a week is actually BEFORE the school day begins.  In view of the weather, I was not going to press on that.)

He went  back out to work and as the clock ticked, I told him his car should be good enough to drive and to come in and get ready to head out.  Then I went out (sans coat...a mistake that I should have known NOT to make) and decided to warm up his car.  

Getting there was trickier than I thought.  I didn't realize how much ice there was. It may have been a very thin coat, but still...Not the best thing to deal with on a cold Monday morning with a bad leg.  I got in the car and started it up and realized that he didn't have the defroster on.  So I turned it on as  high as it would go and very quickly the remaining ice on the windshield.

As he was getting ready to go out the door, I asked him why he didn't have the defroster on and he looked at me, saying "what is that?"  Now, I'm not sure if he really didn't know or if he was just so frustrated that he wasn't thinking.  (He is NOT a morning person and patience is not one of his strong points.  Couple this all with a cold morning and dealing with his first wintry morning and it all makes for moody, somewhat angry teen.)  Either way, he KNOWS what a defroster is now.  (And tonight's required reading will be going over the car's manual, which I thought we did before, but...)

I suppose this is not the worst way to experience the joys of cars and winter weather.  (It actually is a pretty good lesson.)  I'm thinking my son feels the same way about winter as I do now.  Yesterday he thought it was pretty; today...Welcome to winter my son.