The Early Winter Bird Catches the Gridlock

Okay, maybe "tilt" is a bit strong, but not really. Just a mini-rant.

I live in Colorado. It snows here every year. Sometimes a lot. Sometimes less so. But it snows here. Every year.

So why is it that every year, at the sign of the first halfway-sorta-significant snowfall, people who have lived here for decades all of a sudden forget the same lessons they presumably relearn every damn year?

Why must your inability to keep four tires on pavement even at 30 mph on an interstate turn my 40 minute commute into a 2 hour 10 minute journey into Hades? Even leaving for work a half hour early (I mean, we were only getting 2-4"), I show up an hour late and have to burn vacation time because you talentless wonders can't drive in a straight line.

And to that especially smarmy looking preppy-dressed movie-star-lookin' shitbird who decided to run out of gas in your Jeep-that's-never-seen-offroad while stradding BOTH southbound lanes of the congestion-relieving side street, thus blocking traffic for 1.5 miles until someone can fetch you a plastic jug of go go juice -- next stop loserville, population you.

This doesn't even account for the trucks that went off the road right in front of me (or a couple hundred feet in front oe me). One of the two trucks I saw doing 360s and flying off I-25 into the median barrier was clearly a 4WD vehicle. The other one may have been, but I can't be sure. These guys weren't even the ones holding up traffic -- and fortunately, the drivers both appeared unhurt, as they'd gotten out and were inspecting damage to their vehicles by the time the slow-moving traffic allowed me to roll on by.

I just don't get it. When I lived in DC, and it would occasionally go 2-3 years without even the lightest snow, and the area is so transitory to begin with, I understood that any snowfall at all would paralyze the roads. That's just part of the deal about living there. But this is Colorado, dammit. You're going to get to drive on snow at least a couple dozen times this year, most likely.

It's like getting caught from behind limping AA in the big blind, only to play the hand the same way the next thirty times you see it.

Anyway, have a great weekend on the felt and off, and try not to do this: