To out-of-state readers, a snowstorm made a sweep over the northern majority of Wisconsin. It dropped about ten inches of snow in about ten hours and canceled my church’s evening service. Nothing shocking. As soon as I found out we were snowed in, warm and cozy, I changed into comfortable (but certainly non-seasonal) khaki shorts and my Donkey Kong t-shirt.
That evening, despite the plows not being able to quite keep up with the blustery thick snow, Christina still wanted to visit our good friend, Kim, across the unlit backroads on the outskirts of town. She felt safer if I would drive her, since I had learned to drive in the frozen tundra of Iowa. Christina’s mother was staying with us, so she could watch our girls while I dropped off Christina at Kim’s.
This is where the story starts to get more interesting.
Most fans would agree that the best head coach to ever grace Minnesota Vikings football was Bud Grant. He was known for the “Purple People-Eaters” who dominated offensive lines, but he was also known to wear a short-sleeved polo during games at the Vikings’ roofless Metropolitan Stadium. Year-round.
(By the way, my older daughter started singing the Vikings fight song a few days ago. I’m so proud!)
So . . . yeah. I wanted to be a tough temperature-resistant northerner like Bud Grant. I wanted to be adventurous. I drove Christina to Kim’s house in the blizzard only wearing shorts, a t-shirt and sandals.
We pulled up to Kim’s house. I locked the car and left the emergency flashers on. Her driveway was yet to be shoveled, so that made for a painful time for my feet as I walked (scrambled, actually) Christina up to the front door. One of my sandals actually came off my bare foot and I had to fetch it.
After I spent a few minutes in Kim’s house with her and Christina (letting my feet warm up), I felt in my pocket that my car keys were missing. Not good. They must have fallen out of my pocket during the scramble to the door and were somewhere in the foot of snow in the front yard.
What could I do? Christina had left her car keys at home. We couldn’t ask Christina’s mom to come and pick me up, because she’d have to pack the sleepy girls and drive through an unfamiliar area during a blizzard. With shorts, a t-shirt and sandals on, I was in no shape to look for the keys in the snow. It looked like I was going to borrow Kim’s car and copy all my keys. I wasn’t going to be able to see my keys again until the snow melted a few months later.
No, fortunately, Kim lent me one of Marc’s coats and a pair of his boots, and I did find my keys close to one of the footprints I left. Otherwise, this blizzard would have been a lot more adventurous than I had wanted.
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