The Blizzard of '93 (Part 3)

I don't recall the exact time it happened, but exhaustion quickly overwhelmed me. I struggled to speak and think. I was unsteady on my feet. I made my way to my room, turned on the heat and TV, and climbed into bed. I made a brief phone call to my wife, then quickly dozed off.

I woke up in time to catch some of the news Sunday evening: more snow. I worked a relatively uneventful Sunday night - or at least I don't recall anything significant. In fact, other than the the snow climbing to about 2 feet and high drifts in the parking lot, I don't recall much about Monday, either.

By Tuesday morning the snow had stopped and the sun was starting to shine through. As a few employees trickled in, I took my queue to exit. I walked outside and checked the road. It was still snow covered, but it had been plowed and packed down, so I knew the VW would make it out. Walked back in, grabbed my coat, and told the rest of the staff I was going home.

I made it out to the highway where the trucks had plowed enough to open one lane. The rest of the road was under 2-3 feet of snow. In my tiny car, I felt like I was driving through a World War I trench. Along the way I encountered a lady hitchhiking along the narrow path. I had never picked up a hitchhiker before, but, given the circumstances, I relented this one time. She was nice enough and needed a ride no more than a mile down the road.

When I got close to my apartment, I floored the VW and drove into the driveway as hard as I could. I pushed the VW into the deep snow until it could go no further. I wanted to make sure it was good and stuck, so that I wouldn't have to go anywhere for a while. After a while, I called the owner of the hotel to let him know I made it home and that I really needed a couple days off. He told me in his Bombay accent , "It is not a problem. Take some time off and I will give you hundred dollar bonus." I was making about $5.75 per hour at the time, so $100 was about 2 days' pay. This was in addition to the roughly 20 hours overtime I'd earned. While I was happy about the extra money, I was happier about being home - especially given my wife's troubles while I was gone...

My wife was safe at home, but caught a nasty cold. Due to the deep snow, she was not able to get out to the doctor or even down to the drug store. Our landlord's daughter came by (on horseback) to use our phone because theirs had gone out. She gave my wife a ride to the gas station down the street to see if they had any medicines. She said riding into a gas station on horseback where no cars were able to get in was quite surreal. Fortunately, they had some meds (unfortunately at typical gas-station rip-off prices, but at least she was able to get something).

A day later, as she was tossing some old popcorn outside, she slipped on the icy steps. As she fell her bottom hit every single step on the way down. She was OK, but she sat still for a moment, stunned. She then slowly crawled back into the apartment. The fall resulted a very black and blue bottom.