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Show jft Sttntlke si Veiun by Teri Gomes A thaw in the Big Chill I'll grant you it can be a cold, lonely world out there. ; But every once in a while there are some Park City pockets of warmth that can take the edge off the chill. No doubt you noticed that some time last week we I turned the corner from autumn and ran smack dab into At Old Man Winter. I, for one, was unprepared. ; Last Wednesday when the snow was falling and I was , running late for an interview, I was forced into remembering that everything takes a little bit longer to do when there's snow. I gave a quick brush-off to the windows of my car, jumped inside and headed uptown. Not two blocks away from the house, the wiper on the driver's side rebeled. Instead of wiping in a precision-like manner the damn thing didn't stop at the J end of the front windshield and suddenly wrapped itself around the side window of the car and got hooked on the side mirror. I rolled down my window, stuck my hand out and wrestled this-thing-still-moving-under-a-power-of-its-pwn back around to the front window where it belonged. I placed the wiper back on the windshield, and turned the thing off for a minute. But it was snowing too hard not to have the wipers going. On top of that, this whole aggravation was making me hungry. Since I was just a teeny bit late already I decided a drive through Burger King could only help my disposition, j But when I turned the corner off Park Avenue I could hardly see a thing. So I turned the wipers on. And the f wiper on the driver's side danced past the normal stopping point and again wrapped itself around the side mirror while the passenger wiper was doing just as a wiper should back, forth, back, forth. I pulled into the drive-thru window, rolled down my window and began to wrestle again with the possessed wiper. I was aggravated, felt like an idiot, was late and I temporarily forgot where I was. W hile I was sitting there . , cursing the gods for my fate with the wiper a voice that seemingly came from the heavens asked, "Can I help you?" . And so, without thinking, I blurted out. "Yes, you can !help me fix this windshield wiper." (I have a dear friend who once told me years ago. "Teri, if it's on your mind, it's on your mouth." i I remembered where I was and tried a gay little laugh and said, "Just kidding, Til have a chicken sandwich and a Pepsi." The all-knowing voice commanded, "Drive forward, please." So on I drove and while I was waiting I got the window wiper back on track. But by the time my car had reached the window and mind you, it is seriously snowing outside now the person behind the voice from the drive-thru window appeared in a thin windbreaker outside my car. "I can help you now with that wiper, ma'am," he said. Pity I'm already married, because I considered proposing to the man on the spot. He (who Tve since learned, is named Troy) smiled and trudged his way back through the drifts to the burger haven. I'd like to say that brief encounter produced a thaw that lasted throughout the day. But how soon I forget. After my interview uptown and a series of errands and aggravations, I was nearly home when I realized I had forgotten a needed ingredient for dinner. So I swung into Park City Central Check-In deli. My windshield wiper was still behaving erratically, so when I pulled in I tried again to wrestle it from the side mirror. This time I cut my thumb, right at the joint, on some dumb metal edge. I walked into the deli trying not to drip blood on the counter where I placed my purchases and I stuck my thumb into my mouth. Realizing just how ridiculous this looked I blurted out to Marie behind the counter," my windshield wiper went beserk and I cut my thumb." She did not roll her eyes or impersonally nod and ring up my items. She warmly said, "I know just what you're talking about. That happened to me last winter. All you probably need to do is tighten the wiper with a screwdriver." I thanked her, grabbed my blood-stained bag and headed home. Sure enough, a screwdriver applied to the wiper fixed the problem And it struck a vein with me that we are headed into the time of year where it's easy to be in a hurry. Easy to hide behind a cash register, do your job and nothing more. And easy too, in the cold world out there, to neglect to offer a little warmth that could make somebody's day. Troy, Marie: Thanks for the memory of a little warmth on an otherwise snowy, miserable day. |