Snowstorm

I like Ohio 90% of the time. More appropriately, I like my little truck 90% of the time. The 10% for both Ohio and my little Chevy coincide with the appearance of black ice and drifting snow.

My commute to work is usually a pleasant one where I just zone out while flipping through radio stations. I keep up to date with NPR's news for a bit and then switch over to AM conspiracy theories to round out the plane. I keep current on American popular music, which I find to be unendingly humorous (you know it's all about girls meeting boys and boys meeting girls, right?) and then I'll flip through to modern country, also just about girls and boys with a little patriotism mixed in there. The oldies stations get old pretty fast, but provide a relief from the girls and boys theme.... wait, a minute. What was Elvis actually singing about?

Anyway, while driving through what is turning out to be a massive snow storm on my way to work, I settle on a rock station that plays neither the same 10 classic Zepplin & Floyd songs nor the same 5 Nickleback songs, but something in between, or what I'll refer to as the Zeppleback station. Bon Jovi's song Livin' on a Prayer is what has me settle on that station as it seems appropriate while I'm going 30 MPH on 76E trying to keep the nose in front of the back of my truck.
I play this fun game called Wind - Alignment - or Black Ice. I'll be driving along and then suddenly lose control of the wheel and I have to guess what's moving the wheel, the strong winds that whip this little machine around on the road, the crappy alignment that's in the long to do list for my mechanic, or is it the slushy ice and snow building up below the terrible traction of a rear wheel drive light truck.
I usually use my brother's and sisters in light truck ownership as indicators of how terrible the roads are. One time while driving my old reliable snow cat Honda down 80 during a massive snow downpour, without fail after I would pass each little bridge, there would be one or two light trucks in the ditch immediately following. Without fail. Weird.

Anyway, this round of wind/alignment/black ice is especially fun because the wind is really coming from all sides. I resist the urge to change the station as Carrie Underwood's - Jesus Take the Wheel is actually quite tempting when driving in those situations, although I'm not sure that my outcome would work out like in the song. Bon Jovi has me trudging along at a safe pace, getting passed by boat cars and 4x4 trucks constantly and then as if the DJ knew that I was struggling in an epic battle to keep on the road, she plays an equally epic song from the era when Metallica fanned out into a 30 piece orchestra. I'm a sucker for stringed instruments in rock other than the usual bass and guitar. It's beautiful and appropriate until he starts singing what I can only assume was a stroke of "genius" in lyrically writing so much that he repeats the same line over and over -
"and it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel, is just a freight train coming your waaaaaay."

I'm not sure whether to laugh or feel the impending fate of falling off into the ditch along with my brothers and sisters post-bridge. That song is like 10 minutes long and that's all he says. It actually does make me grip the wheel with white knuckled determination in order to make sure that the soothing light at the end of my tunnel isn't a semi coming my waaaaay.

A half hour later and I'm about to work when the DJ throws on NIN's Hurt, and since i am a sucker for odd instrumentation in rock songs, I keep listening and chugging along through the slush on Industry Road. It's actually a quite beautiful song when you really focus on it... and think you might die at any minute.

So I made it to work and with this paycheck, I will not set aside part of it to fix my alignment, but rather I'll put it in a new account titled - new car savings. :)