Winter Woes from Becca

Last weekend I had to travel to Atlanta for work. While I was not extremely excited to go to this meeting (many reasons here), I was extremely excited to get out of the brutally cold weather (although even Atlanta was 12 degrees on that Friday). While I was away, Becca sent me a detailed account of her day...


pretty much what happened was i had to go to a meeting on friday for work on mandated reporting (dcfs type stuff) at another church school.

so i wake up. tired and groggy, as always fearing the ferocious cold that will bite me once I get outside, and I walk into the bathroom to brush my teeth. Roughly one half of a drop of a water comes out of the faucet, so I crank both knobs to their full force. this time approximately 1/4 of a drop of water comes out of the faucet. i think to myself, "this is probably a big issue that i need to tell victor about." but then i think about how he's been an asshole lately, and i pray that a water mane has gone out and that the issue will be resolved by the time i get back from my meeting. i swish some generic listerine around in my mouth instead of brushing and then bleach wipe the sink so that it doesnt look like the hulk has recently done any business there.

i get dressed, carefully placing double layers of long underwear as to prepare for the coldest day in 10 years (which according to weather.com, was actually colder in chicago than the south pole that day).

before i can leave to go to work on time, i get a phone call from paul. apparently he has no running water either. great. he happens to catch me outside before i leave and now i have to run inside and turn all the faucets slightly on for the plumber. now im late to this meeting...

my hands by this point (having spent roughly 8.5 minutes outside wearing my ski gloves) are completely frozen to the point that I cannot properly steer my car. However, i am late, and cannot wait, so drive i must. gps has problems with giving directions if i have to make two turns right after each other, so i ended up getting lost with my gps. about five minutes later, gps figures out where i am, and i make it back. i turn into the parking lot, only to discover that i would be blocking someone if i parked, and it takes me another titulating 10 minutes to back out of the parking lot because everyone else has managed to make their own parking spots. i find parking on the street and once again my hands are frozen solid.

i walk into the meeting and the speaker calls me and three other people out on being "obnoxiously late" -her words not mine. she then proceeds to tell me that if i don't move to a seat closer to the front i can "attend another meeting in the spring when it is warmer outside". i go up one row and sit next to my assistant principal and religion teacher. the religion teacher, whispers under her breath that the speaker is a bitch. and she was... for the next two hours, we listen to some lady gallyhoot about her opinions and stereotypes. fortunately for us, she is from the south side and the only two areas that she speaks at are the south and west side because, no offense, she doesn't like to deal with the yuppy catholic schools. as a real plot twister, the english teacher at our school, pulls out a reporter's notebook and proceeds to write down every inappropriate thing the lady says. she has since written a letter to the archdiocese about this. (and no, i am actually not the english teacher i teach reading. however, i always admire someone who isn't afraid to pull out a reporter's notebook when the time calls for it)

after the meeting, i manage to get home pretty easily, with the exception that my fingers remained yellow for about 45 minutes. there is still no water in the house, and mike informs me that he took a shit in the toilet, and he can't get it to flush. note: he knew about the situation, but i guess he was in a bit of a predicament i tell him to use the water from the brita water pitcher to get it to flush. he tells me that was what he was planning on using to wash his hands. note: haven't used the water pitcher since.

after spending an hour packing to go to Ashley's, i decide to start on my trek of taking out three bags of garbage. i manage to get the first bag out pretty safely, but when it comes to bag number 2, i slip on the mountain of snow on the steps and end up sliding the rest of the way down, bumping my tailbone on roughly 5 or 6 stairs. at this, i burst in immediate tears, and the garbage man who happens to be there at this moment in time, helps me up and brushes the garbage off of my coat and pants. he is the true protagonist of this saga, as he takes it upon himself to clean up the rest of the mess covering teh snow. he even volunteers to take any other garbage that i might have from my house, but i tell him not to worry about it. over a week later, the last garbage bag is still in the house untouched...

i go inside and hunt for a bottle of advil. at some point (im guessing during my stint of unemployment last year) i oddly purchased a generic bottle of advil. for minutes i try to align the arrows and pop the top off. the only thing that comes off, though, is my fingernail from this pathetic attempt. i find a bottle of advil from deb's room and take some of that.

i get an update from paul. apparently the pipes froze int eh house. why wouldn't it when it's literally -38 outside. just what he needs is another flood in his apt (this would be the third time this year for him).

before i depart on my 2 hour journey to ashley's house (it's a friday so anticipated traffic is not good), i decide i really need to pee. after judging the risk of peaking at the toilet, i decide to check and see if mike has managed to flush. ....not so lucky...

i drive to the walgreens to pick up some advil, and wait in line for about 15 minutes. their bathroom is out of order. i decide to just give up and leave to go to Antioch. surprisingly, traffic wasn't all that bad, and the rest of my day went by pretty uneventful. i guess the glooming shadow of darkness that every once in a while haunts me doesn't travel past cook county.