A Christmas Miracle

Let me start by saying that I'm now in a fine mind-space. That, however, was not the case an hour ago. I should also remind you that I have no heater in my car which, in turn, means I have no defroster in my car. And I might also add:


So this morning, I left the house about ten minutes early because I knew I had to stop and get gas. I scraped off the windshield with an old cell phone case because my scraper is missing. Which... you know... is fun because it doesn't really work that well. And about 3 minutes down the road my windshield completely iced over again. So I did what any person driving a 2 ton chunk of metal with no visibility would do and turned the windshield wiper blades on full blast. Shockingly, that didn't work. So I rolled down the window, stuck my head out, and drove to the gas station with MY HEAD OUT THE WINDOW. Also...

So I pulled into the gas station and called my husband, because that's what you do at 7am when your car doesn't work. He told me to get some windshield wiper fluid/deicer. So I did. And, believe it or not, I had never put any type of fluid other than gasoline in my car. Never ever. But I did it! I opened the hood and found the blue cap and dumped in almost an entire 5 gallon jug of the stuff. Also, I had probably called Dave 3 times at that point. Nevertheless, I hopped back in the car and turned on the windshield wiper spray guy, or whatever they are actually called. Aaaaand, it didn't work. Nothing. Not even the teensiest squirt. So maybe I called Dave again. And he suggested I pour a small amount of fluid on the sprayers to unfreeze them. And I did that, and THAT didn't work. Of course.

So I sat back down in my car, rolled the windows down again, and tried to maneuver into a parking space in the corner. I tried again to spray. And I waited. And I tried again. And I called my office to tell them I'd be late. And I started crying, and I tried again. And I googled Pep Boys to see what their work hours would be and I called Dave and I started crying more. Maybe uncontrollably. And I told him I was taking it in to get fixed and I didn't care how much it would cost and that the world was coming to an end and I was trapped at the gas station and I would die of hypothermia and I loved him and our life was really special and fun while it lasted and I was sorry about that one time I slammed the door. Maybe not all of that. More of it than you'd think, actually.

And while I was crying and imagining the end of my life trapped inside the icy car, the sprayers started spraying. I was almost embarrassed to tell Dave they were working because maybe I had overreacted before, and that's never fun to admit.

And I drove to work spraying my deicer basically non-stop because every time I stopped spraying, the windshield iced over again. And as soon as I pulled on to the interstate, where people drive 70 miles per hour, I ran out of fluid.

A whole 5 gallons. Gone.

So it iced over everywhere except a small little circle right in the middle. MIRACLE OF ALL MIRACLES.

And I drove to work half lying down in the front seat to look through the little circle right in the middle of the windshield. And I wasn't even crying then. You know what I was doing? I was praying for safety and praying that the little visibility circle in the middle didn't close up, and I was writing facebook statuses in my head. Because it's my happy place.

This is what I came up with:

- Nothing like crying in your 16 degree car for half an hour before 8 am to start the day off right.

- I had an actual "Jesus take the wheel" moment today.

- Oh nothing, just wearing leggings, pants, a long-sleeved shirt, a sweater, a heavy coat, slipper socks, thick boots, mittens, my hood, and still freezing to death because I'm sticking my head out of the window into the SIXTEEN DEGREE AIR while I drive because my window is iced over.

- If I were the type of woman who used cuss words, I would have said them all and invented several new ones this morning.

And then I got to work and grabbed some hot tea and borrowed a space heater and defrosted myself. And made plans to get my heater fixed.