Ice Scraper

I swear that just about every time I've had drumline rehearsal so far this year, when I came to the car, it was covered in snow. Well, actually, for the first couple practices and maybe one after that, I rode my bike to the Blue Band Building, but then I figured out pretty quickly that that was a terrible idea and I should drive. One time I got a ride with Keith, who also took Mailbox, Emily, Justin, and Adam, but then I got access to a car on my own and that was much more convenient, so I just went with that.

The problem with that was that it was Ryan's car, which first of all is enormous, and second of all DOES NOT CONTAIN AN ICE SCRAPER. This was a very, very big problem, because it's snowed about 75% of the days so far here, so every Saturday, there's snow on the car that you have to get off. I remember the first time, I tried to clear it off with my hands. I usually wear a t-shirt, my blue jacket, and my big black AE jacket, and I thought that cleaning the snow off with my hands would be reasonable. It was certainly not. First of all, there's a slit in my AE jacket sleeves to make the whole button thing work, so snow gets in there when you try to clean it with your hands. Second, I don't know if you've ever just stuck your hands in snow for a minute at a time, but it hurts. Extremely, extremely quickly. After about a minute I could barely feel my fingers. I actually had to just put them in my mouth to get feeling back in them. After that, I opened up the car and found some stupid plastic container that was sort of rigid and cleaned the car with that - you know, the kind of plastic container a pair of scissors or a CD player would have come in that's impossible to open on your own. So after a long, long time, I finally cleaned the car with that.

The next time I went to practice, I had the same problem. Snow and ice all over the windshield and no ice scraper in sight. I wanted to ask other people near me if I could borrow one, but there were either no people or I was embarrassed, I forget which. In either case, I decided the stupid plastic thing wasn't working, but I still wanted something rigid, so I used my drumline binder - thank god I listened to directions and got myself a binder, right? So I started using that to clean and thought it'd be okay since all the pages are in plastic protectors. It did an okay job, but after I finished I took a look at it and was just like.... aww crap. The cardboard that strengthens the front and back was soaked and pretty much still ruined, and snow/water got into the plastic page protectors and ruined some of the corners of my pages. But oh well.

Later, I got an ice scraper. Finally! All my problems would be solved and I could remove the eight inches of accumulation without a problem, right? No, not at all. Once I started doing it, I realized that was no effective way to use it without getting your hands on the snow, which lead to once again having my hand in snow for a minute straight, me losing feeling, and sticking my hands in my mouth to try to get feeling back. I think this was actually the case when I drove home last week because drumline was cancelled though... Oh well. Still drumline related in some sense. Count it.

It wasn't until JUST TODAY that I *FINALLY* got everything under control. T-shirt, jacket, other jacket, ice scraper, and mittens [no, not the pink mittens, ones for guys]. And I cleaned off the car almost without a problem. Some snow still got in my socks and that's sort of a pain, but it's not a big deal - I actually have an extra pair of black socks with me. I wanted to go to my room and change, but I saw Bill in the lobby before I left and he didn't take his key, so I just gave him mine... and the room is locked so I'm locked out and can't get socks.

Also, I went to practice an hour early today. I swear the schedule said 9:00 was the start time but I guess I was wrong. So that's why I'm here writing this.

Peace out!