Wielding the ice scraper is a necessary evil. It’s a little like picking up after a dog. If you paused to think what you were actually doing, you might feel like an idiot. So, I’m picking up this dog crap with a plastic bag glove? So, I’m churning away at my windshield with a plastic stick? You get the idea. Dogs were meant to do their business in open fields and windshields were meant to be cleared by the defroster, but that’s not the world we live in. It’s a testament to the weather we’ve been having that most people are probably excited to get a little ice. Compared to another foot of snow, some ice or some nice flooding rain would be a dream. Of course the ice brings out the scrapers. I could hear them outside my window this morning in the wee hours. Scrape, scrape, scrape. Like I said, it’s a maddening and menial task. It made me wonder what ice scraper scenarios would be the absolute worst?
I scanned through a lot of possibilities. There are many obvious things that come to mind. You’re late for work, you are up against the McDonalds breakfast deadline, your wife is in labor and hitting you with a blue streak of profanity, you have 30 seconds left on your meter and the maid is on the prowl…all those are inopportune times to need the scraper without a doubt. I got a little more creative, though. Imagine the horror of this scenario:
Everyone knows there is something called the walk of shame. But, there is also a drive of shame. What is this? Well, have you ever been too drunk to drive yourself home from a bar or similar location? You have to leave your car there and then the next day you have to find someone to take you back and get your wheels. There you are, at odd hours, wandering across the deserted parking lot to your car. Most people driving by are probably thinking, “look at that hot mess.”. It’s the drive of shame.
It happens all the time. Duffers has the drunk bus that drives people home and on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Their large parking lot is always dotted sporadically with a couple dozen cars all awaiting their pick-up. Bars aren’t the only place cars get left behind, though. What if you passed your tipping point at say, I don’t know, a strip club.
Strip clubs are, by rule, pretty shoddy structures. The words to describe their exteriors are often in the neighborhood of unassuming or plain, maybe ramshackle? They are generally meant to be approached in the hours of darkness. One neon sign and a healthy dose of anonymity. If you happen to pass a strip club by day you might not even take notice, or you might shiver at the overall seediness. The moral is, you don’t want to be seen anywhere near the Foxy Kitten Go-Go Bunny Lounge when the sun is up.
But, what if you were in need of a drive of shame? Your car was standing alone in the expansive parking lot and you needed to retrieve it. It’d be a mildly embarrassing endeavor would it not? Slinking across the parking lot, feeling the judging eyes on you from the passing cars. But now imagine that your car was in need of an ice scrape. Instead of a quick exit you have to stand there and saw away for what seems like an eternity while everyone and their mother drives by. There’d be a lot of shaking heads. And, I guarantee that at least one person would say, “at least I’m not that disaster, scraping ice of my car in the parking lot of Ken’s 10s at nine o’clock on a Saturday morning.”
So, there you go. That’s my worst case ice scraping scenario. If you’d like to try to top it, go right ahead.
3-Putt Territory 
I have to say, I have tried to come up with a worse scenario and haven’t been able to. Maybe unless you then got pulled over for “morning after DUI” while still in the strip club parking lot.
Haha..
That would be a great finishing touch.
I did decide that I probably would change it to Sunday morning. That way some of the people passing you and judging you are on their way to church.
Unrelated, if you’d like to do a fun experiment, read Rick Reilly’s column and see how many paragraphs it takes you to throw up. Apparently Green Bay leads the nation in small townish-ness and Reilly leads it in myopic asshattery.
I made it to “dimpled pigskin” and then started skimming, and then gave up completely when the argument became that you should root for Green Bay because Pottsville PA no longer has a professional football team.
Myopic asshattery, great line.
And I think Sunday is the perfect touch. There you are, standing in the strip club parking lot at 9am in the cold, doing the one-leg stand and the walk-and-turn while all the churchgoers drive past you with their beady, judging eyes. And the reason the officer pulled you over in the first place is that you tried to rush the ice scraping and didn’t get the back window more than half clean, so you were in violation of the obstructed windows law.
I’d say if there was a yellowish tint to any part of the windows or door handle would probably be an insult to injury. It’s hard to imagine somebody taking the time to do that to the window, but people do just about anything these days.
Or how about this. Instead of the DUI, what happens next is that you get a flat tire while still in the strip club parking lot, so you have to get out and change that. And someone stops to lend you a hand. And it’s Mr. Steckel.
hahaaha DC wins.
Oh yeah, a piss popsicle on the car would be a downer. It could certainly happen.
The other scenario is shocking and awful, but maybe strays a bit too far away the pure ice scraping scenario.
Steckel would probably ask why I didn’t shoot the 3 that time or why I wasn’t better at baseball.
I knew I was going far afield, it was just such a horrible idea I had to pass it along.
I posed the ice-scraping question to Megan. Her answer: it’s dark outside, 10 below zero, sleeting, you’ve forgotten your gloves, you are so low on gas that you can’t turn the car on to run the heater, and you are late for either a job interview or a date.
Hmmm
I guess it is a question of private misery vs. Public shame.
i dunno, i mean – honestly, the stress of this morning was far far greater than any of the recent PA even MA snowstorms. events in this order:
1, i am finishing a morning run, the only major icy patches – the endless driveway of my landlord’s property. when out of no where, i hear this loud loud sound even through my “miss pa” soundtrak (amazing by the way, recommend it), and i am certain it is a dog about to attack me, because this happened on a regular basis when i was 3 feet tall, 22 pounds, and also last week. and i panic (confident that i won’t have a coronary cause i’m running and my heart rate is already high), and it’s my old aged neighbor, scraping to save his life. i think, eh, in ten minutes after i shower, my car won’t be as bad as his.
2, but it gets worse. because my car is solidly encased in ice, even at 1015. and my engine won’t start. i think the lube was frozen, even even even in -20 degrees, i never had this problem in boston. i am stressed,
3, then it gets worse. because my car doesnt defrost, because the poor baby cannot get warm – like its owner – soon, i cannot tell if i am cracking ice or cracking my windshield.
4, then it gets worse, cause i am uber sensitive to cold, and i have to take a time out and press my hands to the heaters in my car
5, then i’m really running behind, hands slightly numb, the car gets done. mostly. yet, i refuse to take a sleek highway to work, opting for slow-fo-light-tastic route 30.
6, and it gets way worse, because i HAVE TO HAVE MY STARCRACKBUCKS, especially the first day on the job each week. what else will motivate me? so, i have a choice: no starbucks or try to pull into a NEVER shoveled parallel park job at paoli station.
7, and it gets way way orse, cause of course i will try! for starbucks, i’d do almost anything.
8, then i get stuck. and it takes me too long to figure my way out of the spot, i’m killing my car, and i say no to the line at starbucks. there cannot be a sadder moment in my week than that…
9, so i say yes to this new hipster, surprisingly snobby yet tasty coffee joint. next door. i assume “no starcrack, no line.”
10, and it gets worse, cause now i am JUST going to make it to work on time. i’ve forfeited my 15 extra minutes to car engine issue, ice, and stuck at starbucks. and this lady in her 50’s, carrying what appears to be architectural tubes of work, decides to play a game with me at the exit/entry point. basically, i am cranking to get out of there, on the right side, and she is snail’s pace moving in from the left side of a double sided door, her load is too wide for one side. i glare at her. immediately, she knows to get out of my way.
and all’s well that ends well: work on time and coffee in hand.
i am praying for an ice day, tomorrow.
What if you need to scrape ice off the windshield and you don’t have an ice scraper as a friend waits patiently in the car?
You start karate chopping the ice, but it doesn’t work. And then the lightbulb goes off. In your glove compartment is an old CD case.
Here’s the dilema. The CD case was for an old Will Smith production.
Do you ask your friend to retrieve the CD case and risk the embarrassment of revealing your poor taste in music from back in the day and then use it to scrape ice? Or do you suck it up and do your best Karate Kid impersonation while removing ice from the windshield?
That’s a pretty funny scenario.
Another non-scraper issue could be you break out the credit card, only you don’t have an old one with you, and you end snapped in half your Master Charge or some such tradgedy