Drive Like an Idiot Day

December 19, 2012

Drive Like an Idiot Day

Are you excited? It’s time for that magical day of the year that I like to call Drive Like an Idiot Day.  It’s not like Christmas, always on December 25^th.  It’s not even like Thanksgiving, always the 4^th Thursday in November.  No, It is not a fixed date or rule each year.  Drive Like an Idiot Day is what I call the special day in late fall or early winter when we get the first snowfall of the season.

Winter used to be my favorite season when I was younger.  We got to have snowball fights before school while waiting with the neighborhood kids at the bus stop.  We would then continue the snowball fight after we got dropped off at the end of the day.  This might be followed by sledding or something.

One of my two best sledding memories was this one time my dad got himself, my brother, and me invited to some private land on what has to be either the best or second best hill in the county.  The road running by it is unofficially called Roller Coaster Hill, just to give a sense of it.  There’s probably a 70 or 80 foot climb, followed by the same descent, followed by a 100 foot climb.  Depending on the direction you take to it, you can either climb once or twice.  Whenever I am back in my hometown for a while, and have my bike, I make an effort to go on it at least once.  But we were in this guy’s field and all three of us were having a grand time.  In the summertime it was a cow pasture, but I don’t recall any incidents with cow pies, so there must have been enough snow to cover them up.  I was still using the long plastic yellow sleds that created a lot of friction, and therefore slower.  I don’t think I was old enough to be trusted with the real sled with metal runners.  Besides, Dad was using that anyway.  It was a 15 second ride at most, but it was exhilarating while it lasted.  Well worth the two minute climb to get back to the top.  Of course, my brother and I had boundless energy that the adults didn’t have.  We probably got three runs done in the time it took Dad to get two runs in.

Things changed once I got to be driving age.  Snow and ice now have become a real concern.  I have certainly had issues with getting stuck with no traction.  One winter I was delivering pizzas over a college Christmas break.  I got stuck while trying to find the right street for a delivery.  It was icy and I ended up with one wheel that had no traction at all.  I was also on an incline and most of the car’s weight was on that wheel.  I tried everything I could to get out of this jam, but couldn’t do anything.  This was long before I had a cell phone.  I had to go to a nearby house to see if I could get help.  I think whoever responded was fairly old, so their physical help wouldn’t do any good.  Instead I asked if I could use their phone.  I got a hold of Dad and he came right over.  I think he brought along some kind of traction device, sand maybe, but the biggest thing he brought was advice on how to perform the driving maneuvers needed.  He had dealt with this many times before and used it as an opportunity to teach me something about the real world.

Back to modern times, I call today Drive Like an Idiot Day because it seems like there are three days in the year when you absolutely do not want to be on the roads.  They all happen around winter and spring.   1) The first snowfall – you have a lot of people who forget how to drive on snow and ice over the summer.  They seem to think they are invincible and the laws of physics don’t apply to them.  You also have all the teenagers who haven’t dealt with snow on even a flat road before.  It takes at least the first snowfall and sometimes the second, for everyone to remember again. 2) New Year’s Eve, and 3) St. Patrick’s Day.  My friend Robert calls these nights Amateur Nights.  I think his commentary was directed more to the state of the bars, but I’m extending it to the roads as well.

We here in Des Moines are predicted to get 8 to 14 inches over the next 24 hours and heavy winds during the daytime tomorrow.  I hadn’t heard about it until I showed up at work today.  I don’t use my TV at home for anything other than to play a video (I'll explain in another post), and I don’t go to weather.com too often unless it is biking season.  I’ll get heavy into my biking and triathlon adventures in the future, in another post.

Until next time, have a happy Drive Like an Idiot Day and stay safe.