Relative Something

I may be wrong about this, but it sure seems to me that people today have come to expect that snowstorms shouldn’t alter their regular routines one bit. To a certain extent, I am as guilty as anyone else, but I have always been one to venture out in snow events. I have almost always driven 4-wheel drive vehicles. But in the past, I was one of a small number of people who were out before the plows. Now I find all sorts of vehicles forging their way, devising arbitrary routes and pathways, and parking in vague proximity to normally expected spots. The poor snow-plow drivers must execute their maneuvers with the added challenge of navigating traffic.

Yesterday, I guess the snow didn’t accumulate early enough for the plows to get ahead of the regular morning traffic. As I crested a small rise at the approach to my health club driveway, I found two county plows stopped, the back one with the driver’s side door open. A car ahead of me went around them and turned right in front of them to enter the club parking lot. I chose to follow, thinking the plows weren’t headed anywhere with that door open. A couple of vehicles approaching were waiting to make their left turns into the same lot, so I felt I shouldn’t dawdle there and leave them waiting.

I made the turn as I cleared the first plow, only to find the pickup that was trying to clean the parking lot, in my lane, in what appeared to be a standoff with the county trucks. To get by him, my only option was to enter in the wrong lane, and of course there was someone trying to leave at the same time, so we were now face to face. I had very quickly made myself the center of the multi-faceted problem. I was very happy not to be trying to plow snow while cars continue to move about as if it was just another day. It’s gotta be frustrating.

Later, on the freeway, cars whizzed past me as if the pavement were clear and dry. But evidence to the contrary was visible in the tracks of the spinouts that must have bounced against the concrete center barrier and from the paths blazed into the ditches on the right. People expect to be able to drive the posted limit, regardless the snow event. It is expected that the Department of Transportation should remove the snow and salt the roadway and that cars should be able to move about the roads just the same as any other day. My workplaces have never designated a “snow-day” and the schools in town rarely ever do anymore… it’s as if it has come to pass that a snow event should no longer even be an event after all! Just carry on as if nothing’s wrong; that is, unless you are a snow-plow driver. Then you’ll need all the luck you can get to accomplish your chore, uninterrupted.