A post in which we have ice

The word had been out, and people were already acting crazy, but the morning just looked overcast.  I didn't smell snow, but then you can't smell pending freezing rain.  Freezing rain is the particular weather hazard of South Carolina.  It isn't snow.  Rain falls, and hits the cold atmosphere below, causing the water to build up on things in a layer of ice.  It builds up on power cords, which fall, and on trees, roads, and cars; which makes them slick and hard to deal with.  There is a certain bubbah element who are drawn out to try to drive in the crap, and they end up causing pile-ups.

I went on to work as if nothing was wrong.  A good percentage of the time they call for this stuff and it's a big nothing.  Most of the day it was just cloudy.  About 11:00am they announced that the company would buy us free lunch in the cafeteria.  Since at least half of the staff goes out for lunch, this is to keep them in the building working and not out in the midst of an accident somewhere.  By the time I got down there, they were out of most things.  I had some very thin 'cream' of tomato soup and some tater tots.  I was reflecting on this breakfast of champions when it started to rain. 

I had decided to stay unless something actually started falling.  They had closed the schools at 11am, and a lot of people had left to get their kids, but since I don't have any I stayed.  But when the nastiness actually started, I decided to go on.  The roads get bad quickly, it was below freezing, and people are nuts, which is the bigger threat.

When I got outside, I realized that what was falling wasn't rain.  It was sleety ice/rain mix.  My car was already crusted in ice and the parking lot was slippery, which did not bode well.  My ice scraper was nowhere to be found.  I don't know what happened to it.  I keep the car under a carport at the house, and since we rarely have bad weather here, I usually don't need it.  I eventually managed to get things thawed out enough to see, and started home.

The highway wasn't bad, but people were crawling.  I could see on the other side of the road where idiots had slammed on their brakes and slid into the dividing barrier on the highway.  For some reason, Southerners think that going exquisitely slow and frequently slamming on the brakes is the way to drive in ice and snow.  I knew that within twenty minutes or so the freeway would be impassable, so I got off to go through town.  Because I am southern, I am genetically required to stop at the grocery store, and did so.  I wanted hot dog fixin's and the makings for party sandwiches.  I had a pan of left-over Parker House rolls I had bought for Christmas, but hadn't used because I decided to make corn bread for Rhonda.  I thought it would be good to turn those into little party sandwiches, so I picked up some cheese and some smoked furkey.

The grocery store wasn't nearly as much of a madhouse as I expected, I guess since most people had already gone home.  By the time I got out of the store, the weather had eased a bit, and by the time I got home, the precipitation had stopped.  I just went on in the house, turned up the heat, and hunkered down.  It was supposed to get colder, and the roads already had icy patches. 

I chatted online and watched telly, wrapped up in a blanket and covered in kitties.  Around suppertime, I made the little sandwiches, which turned out tasty, although I now know why people make those with the square trays of rolls.  I had a round tray, and after I put all the stuff on, I couldn't get the top layer back on the right place to match up with the bottom layer, so mine pulled apart and got messy when I took them out.  I ate an embarrassing amount of little sandwiches for supper, along with swiss cake rolls and potato chips - hey, if I was going to get snowed in an freeze to death, I wasn't going to do it on salad and diet soda.