"Ice Possible!"

Okay enough is enough of this cold air crap.  Headed to work shortly after 4AM this morning, the car thermometer warning "ice possible"!  You have got to be kidding, I live in central Florida for God's sake, it isn't suppose to get this cold.  This will be our fourth winter down here.  I remember the first one...a frost early, but we were told, " not to worry, the first one in five years!"  Well four winters later and guess what, we have had numerous frosts ever year since our arrival.  Point being, either global warming is not happening in Florida, possibly people have no concept of time, maybe they don't know what the hell a frost is.  In any event, it is G-damn cold, flowers are covered, some will survive others not so lucky.  As the saying goes "survival of the fittest" or better yet "location, location, location!"

In Baltic, one expects cold, it is New England.  At least work was just down the back stairway...no car thermometer warning, "ice possible!"  Now that I think about it, we should have had a danger meter rigged to the back stairs.  "Ice possible" would have prevented the numerous injuries that occurred during our twenty three years up and down the stairs.  Luckily, none of those injuries, major, just embarrassing!  Amazing, you could tumble down the stairs at 3AM in the morning, someone seeing you, the silence of the darkness shattered, "whoa, hey lady, you okay?"  "Sure you idiot, it's quicker if I come down the stairs on my ass any way!"  "Of course not you fool, my pride is devastated!"  Mr. Bill and I tried to remember the trips, slips and outright falls by either us, the kids or family and friends.  It has always amazed me, how people, myself included, laugh as soon as they see you pick yourself up from a fall.  Is there some inner feeling, they know you are okay, or do you just appear that way.  If you laid at the bottom in a crumpled pile of bones, would they still frigging laugh?  Honestly, I don't know.  I know the evening, Grammy and Grampy Hastings attempted to leave a holiday celebration, macho Grampy says, "Edith (Grammy), let me go first, the stairs are slick, that way if you slip I will catch you."  Next thing we know Grampy's at the bottom, hitting his ass on every stair tread on the way down. "Grammy carefully selecting her words, "no, no Bob I'll be okay!"  This was after we all crammed back in the kitchen so Grampy wouldn't see us or hear us laugh! Grammy was the first one to snicker!  By the way Grampy was okay, just the usual sore ass, that resulted from this unplanned exit ride.  We'd all been there, done that!.  An "ice possible" warning would of prohibited this. 

One morning as I rushed around the kitchen, baking muffins, pies and preparing the soup for the day, Mr. Bill just exiting the bathroom, I decided to bring the food downstairs to the restaurant in small batches.  The thought process behind this...it is cold, stairs look frosty...why ask for trouble.  I grab the bowl of steaming rice (to be added to chicken stock for soup du jour), heading out the door.  I know I heard Mr. Bill laugh uncontrollable, as I bounced on my fat ass all the way down the stairs, hitting the drain pipe on the side of the stairway, it too making the ride down along side me.  Actually, I think it won the race to the bottom.  Was I hurt...f#*k no, my ass hurt, I was covered with steaming rice, my husband meekly sticking his head out the door..."Annie Potts (his endearing name for me), are you okay?"  "I heard that snicker you asshole, yes, I am okay!"  That not being enough...Stacy the fisherman, next door, just arriving home from a drunken brawl,  "hey Diane are sure you weren't out drinking with me?!," he manages to say, at the same time laughing like a fool.  What a complete idiot!!

However, what goes around comes around.  During construction of the new addition, Mr. Bill attempted to carry a hot bucket of potatoes down the back stairs.  I did not see the fall, nor did I hear the fall...I was witness to the results of the fall.  I arrived home from picking up product on a snowy winter afternoon.  As I parked the SUV next to the loading dock, the piles of snow that lines the driveway, from the hard and snowy winter, looked...different.  First of all these pile had to be at least three feet high.  I slowly peered into the top of the piles, numerous holes melted into the piles.  Upon further inspection, potatoes appeared to be in the tube like holes bored into the piles of snow.  This has got to be good, I assumed.  As I carefully ascended the slippery stairs, Mr. Bill appears, "careful Annie, those frigging stairs are slippery!  Of course, I laughed as he described how quickly the events unfolded...  this resulting inmore potatoes were cooking on the stove!  About fifteen minutes later he questions, "you didn't even ask how I was!"  More hysterical laughter on my part. "ice possible" would have prevented this and saved twenty five pounds  of potatoes as well!

It wasn't always the "big" stairs that caught people off guard.  One morning as Todd comes in the back door of Fred's News, he announces..."You should of seen the flip Mark just did off the back porch. When he landed, I think all of the air came out of his lungs!"  "My God  Todd, is he okay?!"  I guess so, he just laying there gulping for air!"  Mark appears at the back entrance, purple and really pissed off...yes he's okay!  "Ice possible" definitely would of been a plus!