Last night I came home from the mall with a bunch of packages. I’d been hearing all day about bad weather in my region, but I didn’t think much of it. I kind of live in denial that Winter exists, it’s the only way I can deal with this infernal (literally) season.
So I pull into my complex’s parking lot and start making my way up to my usual parking area. Now, my building is at the top of a very steep hill. I’d estimate that the distance between the driveway entrance and my front doorstep is about fifty yards, with a difference in elevation of about twenty. It’s fucking steep, you get the idea.
The surface of the parking lot looked completely normal, so I pulled in like I do any old day. That’s when I started to slide out of control in the direction of a line of parked cars. In an instant, just as I was resigning myself to the fact that I was going to hit them, I remembered something about turning your wheels in the direction your car is pointing. So I did, and my car stopped, literally inches from fucking up somebody’s paint job.
At that point I realized there was no way I was going to get up the hill in my car, so I left it in a non-parking-space in front of the super’s garage. Fuck it, it’s not like he can give me a ticket or anything. So now I have to walk up the hill with my packages.
Keep in mind that the surface of the parking lot looks perfectly normal! Also, keep in mind that I was wearing hiking boots, as I usually do. I took two steps away from my vehicle and, standing up perfectly straight, I began to slide in a downwardlyish direction. I managed to grab onto my car and stop my descent. I tried a few more times to walk on the perfectly normal-looking surface of the parking lot. I couldn’t accept that it was covered in a sheen of ice. It wasn’t even that cold for shit’s sake!
So, now I have a puzzle on my hands. How to get up the hill without using the Earth’s surface. Unless… if I could just get to the grass I could walk up the hill that way and avoid the blacktop. So I plot a path of least resistance to the edge of the lot and start inching my way over, packages in hand. I make it.
I trudge up the hill. I’m almost there. Then I come to another strip of parking lot. I look around. In front of me, on the other side of the 15-foot-wide strip of slippery evil, is my apartment, surrounded by more grass. About 15 yards down and to my right is a cluster of dumpsters. If I try to walk forward across the strip I will slide down the extremely steep hill directly into the piss-smelling remains of an entire garden apartment complex’s worth of post-holiday vileness.
Think, cuauhtemoc. What to do, what to do… Maybe if I climb to the top of the hill, I can start across the strip and make it to the other side before I slide down past my apartment and into the dumpster. But if I don’t catch some grass I’m definitely screwed. It was a chance I was going to have to take.
I made my way up to a point of higher elevation, and stared across the chasm in front of me. I figured I had about fifteen seconds to make it across before the point of no return (A.K.A. the point of you’re-about-to-hit-a-dumpster-at-a-high-rate-of-speed). Determined, I took my first few steps. Immediately I could see that I was not going anywhere but down. I had to think fast or be buried in trash. There was clearly only one thing to do.
I dropped to the ground, packages and all. I put as much of my body in contact with the surface of the ice as possible to increase my coefficient of friction. In seconds, I had managed to interrupt my descent. Of course, now I’m clinging to a parking lot like a Wacky Wall-Walker copyright 1978 Mattel corporation all rights reserved. I have to gather my packages and roll across the strip. Yes, like a sentient pickle rolling sideways on a hill. I’d make a revolution and reach back for my packages. Make another revolution, and reach back for my packages. Repeat as necessary. Until finally I’m at my front door.
Who the fuck builds a garden apartment complex on top of the fucking Matterhorn? Who the fuck does that? Or, more importantly, who the fuck moves into such an apartment complex?!?!?
Thank you for your time. And fuck ice.
