ICE ICE BABY

So this is going to be a story that you should naturally laugh at. Don’t worry about the fact that it was happening to me, someone you know. I’m laughing about it too. As I’ve said before, weather in Chicago is bizarre. On Sunday it warmed up to the mid 50’s. While the temperatures were rather pleasant, what we got after wasn’t. Since the temperatures had warmed up so did the snow. Instead of getting lots of snow on Sunday we got lots of RAIN. Well rain isn’t necessarily a bad thing but it is when you live in Chicago. Our warm temperatures slowly dipped back down into the freezing range. While the temperatures were falling, so was the rain. The rain slowly started to become icy sleet and then into solid ice. I of course was nicely tucked in my warm blankets in the warm house so I didn’t think anything of the crazy weather going on outside. Monday morning however my attention was very much focused on the crazy weather.

I knew it was going to be a slow crazy morning since it took Rob a good 5 to 10 minutes just getting into the car. All the rain we got Sunday had turned into a nice thick sheet of ice on EVERYTHING. The cars were a big block of ice. So as I was waiting for Rachel to come get me for seminary, it was her week to drive, I was wondering how she was fairing with the ice on her car. My questions were quickly answered when my phone rang and it was Rachel asking if I would drive since my car was sleeping nicely in the non-frozen garage. Ok, sure. I had no problem driving. So I head out to the garage to get my unfrozen car so we could go to seminary. Hah, Not a chance! I got to the garage and tried to put my key in the doorknob so I could get into the garage. It was frozen! I couldn’t get my key in the keyhole from all the ice. I was banging on the door knob, trying to jamb my key into the keyhole, twisting, hitting, banging, oh and freezing. At this point with the wind chills the temperatures outside were in the double digits below zero. All my work wasn’t doing me any good. I couldn’t get the doorknob to twist so I could get into the garage. I called Rachel to tell her of my dilemma. A few minutes later she showed up to pick me up. Her windshield only had a small clearing for her to see out of but we were on our way. While we were on our way to seminary we were kind of laughing at how awful this morning was going and how we should have thought about canceling seminary. Just as we were saying these things, BAM, her windshield cracked. Then another BAM, it cracked again. The entire windshield was cracked from one side to the next. Oh boy was this a good morning!

(This is what it felt like) :-)

We finally pull into the church parking lot to see that we actually had students there waiting for us. I thought for sure they would have all gone home by now since we were running about 20 minutes late at this point. We hurried into the church, set up our classroom, and I proceeded to give the lesson. It was the shortest, most rushed lesson I have ever given! Sigh… oh well! We learned our lesson for the next ice storm.

Ok, so I’m home now and it’s about 7:00am. I go in the house and start doing my dishes before I head off to work. While I’m doing the dishes I hear my upstairs neighbor heading out to the garage. I wondered to myself if she would be able to get into the garage. Oh boy was she able to get in! She decided to use the quick fix, pour hot water on the handle. Little did she know it would make it much more difficult for me when it was my turn to head out. So I’m all bundled up and I head out to the garage to see what I was going to be faced with and I was thinking of how I was going to get in when I discovered the now completely frozen doorknob. I could tell she had poured water on in from the puddle of frozen ice right below the doorknob. I couldn’t believe it. All the work I had put into the doorknob at 5:30am was wasted! Now I couldn’t even get the key in the keyhole or get the knob to turn in the slightest bit. What was I going to do? Ah hah!! I went to the bathroom and grabbed my hair dryer and an extension cord. But wait, my cord isn’t long enough! Ahh….. Ok now what? To my luck there is a utility kind of room next to the door I was now trying to break into, and its door was not closed. Having never been in this room I wasn’t sure what I would be finding but to my amazement, there was an outlet right by the door. Sweet! So I plugged my hairdryer in and I was back in business. After blowing hot air on the doorknob for a while I was able to get it to loosen up a little bit. I still had to twist and bang and put some back into it but I was finally able to get the door open. Whew!! What a relief.

The door doesn’t latch anymore because although I was able to get it to twist just enough for me to open the door, it now wont untwist. I can’t complain too much though. I can at least get in and out of the garage now.

(a total exaggeration of our ice storm but you get the point)

Oh I love it when the Chicago-land freezes, it sure makes life interesting. :-)