2003-10-29 - 4:56 p.m.
It's happened. Winter is here with a vengeance, to the tune of a foot of snow. Once again the world becomes sloshy, and motorists slam like crash-test dummies into the wall of their forgetfulness, driving on the first real day of winter as though they are clueless eight year olds perched atop a stack of phone booths with cigar boxes tied to their shoes to reach the pedals. I don't know how it can possibly be that one could live in the prairies, dealing with the annual mercurial-to-saturnine mood swing of prairie weather year after year, and somehow still react to winter road conditions with tabula rasa befuddlement. The only thing more befuddled than these drivers is me steering desperately to avoid them.Until this mad onset of Siberian cruelty, the squeegee kids were doing their thang at 11th Avenue and Albert Street. I came disturbingly close to accidentally injuring one of them yesterday, pulling ahead to make my turn just as he was running up to squeegee my already-clean windshield so that, he imagines, he will then tip the debt scales in his own favour and I shall be forced to hand over loose change. He ran up just as I was about to start moving, and I clipped him with my side mirror a bit. But then I suppose running up and leaning on a car in the middle of traffic puts one in that particular harm's way, now doesn't it? The crosswalks and stern jaywalking finger-wags are there for a reason, I think, and I think that reason is this: it isn't entirely wise to stand in the middle of traffic. Add to that the fact that you've taken up an activity that actually necessitates physical involvement with an automobile in the road. Add to that the fact that the chosen intersection for this bit of impromptu commerce is more or less the T-intersection of two one-way streets, which means most of the motorists can still go even if the light is red, and probably will, especially near to 5:00. Perhaps obliging a motorist at 4:45 to sit patiently at a green light and hold up traffic behind them while you force them into a service you did not ask for and which only you believe earns you some money isn't exactly Wall-Street-caliber business strategizing.
I imagine the weather has put the squeegee kids out of "business." But it's just as well, because it will leave them lots of spare time to get working on completing their Admin degrees.
Years ago a friend of mine and I discussed over coffee the idea of erecting a dome over the city to shield us from miserable winter weather. He shared my enthusiasm for the twin virtues of despising winter and loving Philip K. Dick-esque elaborateness. We spoke of building this merciful ceiling and calling it the Dome for Aerial Resistance To Hostility (D.A.R.T.H.). Imagine something like the ceiling of the huge television studio in The Truman Show. Safe beneath our sky-painted dome, life would be sweeter, drier, warmer, and much less hostile. Motorists would retain their skills, and we'd retain our patience.
Mother Nature, if you have web access and happen to be reading this, nota bene: we aren't terribly fond of this winter business. We get the whole cycle-of-life fruition-to-death stuff, and the metaphor's lovely and all, but we're all for giving a fruition-to-more-fruition situation a try. Please? Email me and we'll talk.
