It’s so interesting to work at Wal-Mart when snow is falling or when it’s predicted to come. The entire population of Waynesboro piles into the store, and buys enough groceries to last them for weeks on end. All of us who work there just comment to ourselves that it’s only a few inches, and these people are acting like they’ll be buried in snow up to their necks for weeks.
Then of course when it snows, reports trickle in about what’s going on elsewhere in the town. By that I mean road conditions, school closures, accidents, etc. And of course, since Wal-Mart has no windows, it’s hard for us to tell what it’s doing outside.
Of course, meanwhile, I’m thinking about my ten-mile drive back to Stuarts Draft from work, and how deeply my car will be covered in snow, and how tricky getting out will be. I park on the far edge of the lot, nose in, with a rear wheel drive vehicle, so it can get a little tricky. By the way, I park in the same parking space every day unless a semi or motor home blocks it. The last row in the lot is slanted down more sharply than the rest of the lot, and so with my car being rear-wheel drive, it doesn’t take much distance before my drive wheels are on snow, ice, or slush. But I got out just fine, after realizing I didn’t know where my snow brush and ice scraper were. So to get de-snowed, I just used the front and back wipers a few times, and did some up-and-down moves with the front windows to clear it all.
And then the drive home was a little slushy, but it wasn’t bad. It’s still too warm to really screw up the roads. That will come later, I’m sure.
But if this storm works out like I hope it will, it’s DC for me on December 7, after an unusual three-week gap between trips. I usually plan them two weeks apart, but due to scheduling issues, I moved the last trip up a week and maintained my regular DC schedule for the rest of the year, and thus the three-week gap. Only other time I’ve had large gaps since I started making regular DC trips was last February with everything related to the operation, plus foul weather cancelled another trip that same month.
What’s planned for this time? Definitely the Infoshop, and likely a trip out to College Park again to visit College Perk. That was fun last time, but this time I know better – take the 83 from the Metro to Greenbelt Road. I’m certainly not walking three miles down Baltimore Road again – and certainly not in the cold! It was a nice day when I went in May, and so I don’t remember being hot – just fatigued. I did get a nice impromptu tour of College Park, though.