The Ice Man Cometh

So an ice storm decided to blast Texas today. Before 2 p.m., I'd already been laughed at by a native Canadian, assured a paranoid Los Angeles transplant that sticking to the main streets would be his safest bet, and been assured that were I to call in sick tomorrow I would be dragged to work by my HR director since I live right down the street from the office.

Insert punchline here.

Texans tend to be an assertive folk on the roadways. We speed through 30 mph school zones with nary a care in the world, and regard speed limits more as suggestions. Law enforcement around rush hour tend to agree with the suggestion part as whenever they are on the freeways between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. week nights, its usually to help out with wrecks.

Now take an entire state of aggressive (and frequently paranoid) drivers and throw bad weather into the mix. Make it ice just for an added kick. It doesn't matter how long the ice is going to be on the ground. It's the End of the World™ just the same. None of us Dallas-natives know how to drive on ice because it so rarely hits us that the rest of the year we don't think about it. You have 365 days a year, and if two of them involve ice do you really worry about it the other 363?

Not hardly.

So a quarter inch of ice has found its way to our city streets and apartment complex roads, and will be burned off by noon tomorrow at the latest. Will that prevent mass chaos tomorrow morning during rush hour? Hell no. Personally, I'm banking on just that. Since El Jefe told us today that we don't have to be at the office until 9 a.m. tomorrow, I'm getting some popcorn in the morning for breakfast and watching the traffic gals work themselves into fits as they try to keep up with all hell breaking loose on the road ways.

I consider this the Olympics of traffic reporting. The only question is, who's going to bring home the gold?