Shattered Glass

Snow- it’s beautiful when it falls. It glistens, and falls lightly creating a feeling of beauty all around on a cold winters day. And after the beauty and enchantment wears off… it debilitates you. Last week it snowed again. Europe and France is seeing a record amount of snow since the early 1980’s and it just keeps shimmering down, landing on the ground, and remaining in places it doesn’t belong.

When it snowed last week the first day I called work and said, I would be working from home- I didn’t want to drive on the unplowed roads. The next day, again there was lots of snow on my parking garage driveway and I didn’t want to attempt getting out. I had someone come and pick me up for work. Day Three, repeat. Day four- Saturday. The driveway looked better, I saw some cars from the garage have managed to break free from the underground dungeon, and decided to make my escape.



I get in my car, pull out, open the garage door, and begin my accent up the drive way. It is a long drive way. I start off well, reaching nearly to the top before the tires begin to spin in circles and I feel the car moving backwards. No! No! No! Break Break break!!! Why aren’t the breaks working? Emergency break?! Nope! Ice. Is. Winning.

Pumping the breaks, I keep sliding. I am still saying, “No. No. No.” But the ice and gravity are conquering all my efforts and I am praying there is not another car behind me that I am going to repel into backwards. I am falling backwards quickly and as turned my head to look back and see if there was anything behind me, exactly as my head turned around to see clearly, there was a booming SMASH and I see the garage door slammed into my rear glass window. Instantaneously, the garage door was missing, I was covered in glass, and due to the momentum the car was now stuck on top of the garage door, that one second ago shattered my window, into the pieces now covering me.

If you think this looks bad, you should see the other guy.

Place head in hands, now.

Frozen and unable to move. Terrified to move the car off of the iron gate, out of fear of popping the tires of the car, I do my best to reverse the car. Thankfully- one of the cars that did exit the garage parked in the first slot and I was able reverse and park there. With all four tires still full of air.

"The Other Guy"

Clean up. Ick. Lots and lots of sweeping.

This garage door is heavy. When my parents were in town, sometimes my clicker wouldn’t open and it would take all three of us to lift the door open. I now had to push the door out of the way of other drivers in case they attempted to go down the driveway. After thirty minutes of pushing and pulling I was able to move the door enough out of the way of drivers and begin the clean up of the car.

So this was my great tragedy of Saturday. This week, a group of us have been working through getting the issues resolved. My apartment manager acknowledged that the driveway is steep and covered with ice. Apparently he had asked the guardian of the building to de-ice it, but the guardian had, “run out of salt.” Gee for three days- three days I was stuck inside unable to go buy salt. Not to mention the last snow fall, the ice was not cleared either. Run out must be code for, “too lazy to do something about it.” But they have been very gracious and understanding thus far about the situation and for that I am very thankful.

Yesterday was my first day driving since Saturday. After the management heard about the accident, amazingly enough the ice was completely dissolved like magic. Poof! Gone. Amazing right? (Though it was still 2 days after the crash.) Yesterday, When I woke up I noticed that the driveway was a bit wet and walked up the entire drive way feeling for any ice, I had to ensure I was not slipping and a sliding my way back down again.

Hopefully next time I go sliding down some snow, it will be in the French Alps and not my drive way. But until then my relationship with snow, “has been broken like Shattered Glass.”