Old College Try: Subzero Edition

I've spent the last 24 hours running from a certain sepulchre of arctic cold.

Yesterday, I drove to work (Menards) in Easter-like temps-- 40 degrees and bare spots showing in the melting parking lot.

Too good to be true.  Five hours pass, and Hurricane Winter arrives.  The parking lot is REAL FROZEN, and my unit (now payroll-restricted to two people-- me and a manager) is ordered to fix it.  

I'm hunched over the steering wheel of a lift truck.  My eyes are stinging.  My body is threatening to go blue and die.  My manager is taking shovelfuls of salt and flinging them on the newly-formed ice glaze.  I'm laughing, because I do enjoy weather terror.  We tossed 600 pounds of salt in an hour or so, him chucking and trying not to slip, and me wondering how much I can laugh before he wonders what's so funny about driving a forklift.

I punch out at 7:22, still covered in salt the wind had beaten into the threads in my corduroys and hoodie.

Now, I'm at Wal-Mart, trying to find Target shoppers who migrated on price to the "other place."  I find one in the camera department.  He has the "look" of an urbane Target shopper. He also has an obsession with the display models.  He holds his security-tethered camera like an artifact, at arms length, determined to decipher its complexities.

As a retailer, any retail news tends to sink in a bit more.

"When the bottom begins to fall, price-point retailers become a haven for penny pinchers."  This is all the retail beatwriters can write anymore, so if you've read the business page once this quarter, you're already sick of it.  Wal-Mart is finally beating Target.  Again.  After four years of the Bullseye Brigade, the recession has put a damper on Target's overachieving. 

Don't worry.  There's always Spam to put Minnesota back on the map.  You may not have heard, but the Minnesota-based Hormel plant has been running overtime shifts for months.  Spam sales follow an inverse relation to the strength of the economy.

After the mini-blizzard, I finally made it home to spend a bit of time with my friend, Ryan.

We enjoy a bit of cinematic malpractice, courtesy of the much-hated director Uwe Boll.  Jason Statham leads as "Farmer" in In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale.  It's a terribly-made movie based on a video game.  It's either the DVD or the production, but the audio is so bad in spots that my buddy thinks I'm farting and not saying anything.  You must see a Uwe Boll before you die.  

On the way back to drop off Ryan at his place, the inside of the windshield ices up, save for 4 "portholes" where the defroster blows.  It reminds me of the Day After Tomorrow.

The drive continues.  Stopped by flashing red lights and crossing arms, I stretch my gloved hand out the window to wave to a train conductor, who I imagine must be a bit lonely.  We are two souls lost in the frost.

Farther west on Main Street, an umbrella-toting madman makes a run for my car.  At first I figured he was suicidal, but then I realized the windblocking umbrella also blocks 100% of his vision.  Genius.  I stop him with my horn and keep driving.

They say it's going to be record-setting cold tonight.  It's just another day for these Minnesotans, of whom I seem to fit with rather well. 

Be smart.  Leave yourself options to stay alive.  Cold like this kills and maims.

It's -6F now.  

Booyakasha, that's low!