Better the Devil You Know?

I don't know where the hours go. I hardly have enough time to do the things I need to do, much less the things I want to do; sleep falls into both those categories. It's all I want to do. The incredible amount of snow we're getting is wrecking my life in almost every way imaginable, even though I've enjoyed cross country skiing on the groomed trails at the golf course every chance I get. But I don't like being trapped in this town; every time I plan even a short trip, snow closes the freeway. I'm tired of shoveling snow, sweeping snow, scraping ice, plowing through drifts, avoiding the snow piled in parking lots and on street corners. I'm tired of the ice building up in my wheel wells so the tires grind against it when I turn, because the noise momentarily freaks me out. And in the drive-through at Kentaco Bell the other day I had to open my door to order a Crunchwrap; Puck's windows were frozen shut.

There are accidents all over town, all the time. I've had to get up at 4 a.m. to get to Public Works by 5 a few times to drive the dump truck, which might not happen so often anymore. Today when I pulled into the garage after a long morning of fighting the cranky PTO, blowing an air hose, and whacking the bed with a sledgehammer (and I believe the guys thought they left the "good" truck for me), I backed the dump truck into the front of the bucket truck parked against the wall of the shop. All it did was crumple the hood, but I had to fill out a brief accident report, and I'll have to take Defensive Driving at some point. Apparently almost everyone has done something similar in the garage. After driving for hours in the blinding snow, pulling into the dark garage is like fumbling around in a cave, and I didn't wait for a spotter.

I'm not really upset about it. Winter seems to have sapped my short-term emotional range almost completely, and there are frequent moments when I feel all my ambition and enthusiasm circling the drain. I'll survive this. Two more months and the worst will be over, and I am more determined than ever to get out of this town. I can't go through this again.