The Dog Days of Winter

So, it snowed yesterday...a lot.  After all was said and done, we ended up with about a foot of fluffy, white snow. Now, I know we've had a few mild winters recently, so maybe people forgot that snow can complicate things.  Things like your commute, parking spaces, footwear choices, etc.  This morning was no exception.  After a 30 minute 11 mile drive, I arrived to the station just as my train was pulling in. So, I didn't make it, and had to wait another half hour for the next train.  I circled the parking lot, only to find that 1/3 had been plowed...and the rest was a strange mix of plowed, semi-plowed, and not plowed at all.  It made me wonder if whoever had plowed was trying to send some sort of crop circle message to the snow gods.
After 10 minutes of circling, I decided to "park" between two giant trucks, in hopes that one of them is still there when I have to go home..in case the plow does decide to come through and I get stuck.

Much to my delight, I found that my car provided a perfect spot to watch everyone else arrive.  Throngs of angry commuters showed up to find the haphazard lot, and reacted accordingly.  The one plow truck that was trying to make his way through got several middle fingers, and a lot of verbal abuse.  He then left.  Probably not a good idea to piss off the guy who's trying to create parking spaces for you...but what do I know.

With about 5 minutes to spare, I headed towards the train, and found that no snow had been cleared whatsoever from the platform or any of the sidewalks.  Luckily, the commuters who had gone before us had created a sort of path..but it was only helpful if you were wearing boots.  Boots. A Minnesota staple, right?  Apparently not.  Many people (mostly women, I'm sad to say), were attempting to navigate through the foot-high snow in regular shoes.  This provided an interesting soundtrack of shrieks, grumbles, and cursing.

At the Anoka stop, a woman got on and sat down across the aisle from me.  Her actions sort of reminded me of my dog, Norman, when he does this crazy thing where he rolls around on his back, snorts and sneezes, and makes a lot of noise.  I read somewhere that they do this to try to smell like you, which is kind of cute but also kind of weird..but I digress. Anyways, she sits down, harumphs about a million times, ensuring that everyone is looking at her, and then proceeds to shake and slap at her normal shoes and socks (no boots), which are caked in snow and ice.  In doing so, she got everyone around her wet...much like my dog Norman does when he shakes off.

She realized what she did, and instead of apologizing, shut her eyes and continued to whimper and moan...much like my dog, Norman.

We all did a collective eye-roll, patted ourselves down, and carried on.

Happy Monday.