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road sage

This article originally ran during the holiday season 2010.

You've endured the death race that was the Yuletide parking lot, been called every name in the book along with a few that were downloaded from "googleswear" on mobile devices and lined up at an over-crowded gas station to fill your car with over-priced petrol. You've driven here and you've driven there and you've wondered what it's all about.

Christmas, the most wonderful time of the year.

How did folks get along without the automobile? Well, they walked most of the time, took sleighs, or skied or they stayed home and ate a lot. Note: in A Christmas Carol Scrooge is visited by three spirits. They come to him. They don't make him hop in a carriage and drive to them.

In this modern age, however, we have our cars, and after suffering every automobile-related indignity that the holiday season can throw at you, there is still one feat left to perform, one snow-slashed demon to face down – the Christmas drive.

The car is packed with gifts. Have you got everything? Yes, you think so. You will, of course, forget one. Which one? The most important – the one whose absence will make your three-year-old nephew cry or your great aunt wince. Has everybody gone to the bathroom? Yes. Good.

A few minutes after you leave, it begins to snow. Twenty minutes later, someone has to go pee. You stop. The weather worsens. You think of the Donner Party. On the highway, no one seems to be slowing down or driving more cautiously to allow for the dreadful conditions. Cars spin out and you pass them. Bewildered castaways waiting for truck drivers wearing Santa hats. Tempers fray. As if reading lines from a movie script, children ask when you will "get there."

"Why didn't we get a DVD player in the back seat?"

"Because you think they watch too much television."

"No, I don't."

"CAN EVERYBODY JUST BE QUIET SO WE CAN GET IN THE CHRISTMAS SPIRIT? WE'LL GET THERE WHEN WE GET THERE. STOP COMPLAINING! THINK OF THE STARVING PEOPLE!"

"Daddy, why are there starving people?"

"What, oh, I didn't mean that. Nobody's starving and everyone has enough to eat. Everything's great. Let's all just be silent. Silently sing your favourite Christmas carol in your head. Sing Jingle Bells in your head!"

"I want to sing Rudolph."

"Okay, think/sing Rudolph."

"I have to pee."

"SOMEBODY GET ME A TELEVISION!"

The weather worsens and you think of Jack Nicholson in The Shining. His family drove to the Overlook Hotel in the fall, before it snowed. Things didn't go too well after that but it was a good preliminary decision. Finally, you manage to get where you're going. In a few days, you'll be heading in the other direction in a car packed with presents. You will forget the favourite one.

So, this is Christmas, and what have you done? Another drive over, another's just begun.

Winter fun

Little nuisances. That's the real problem when it comes to Jack Frost.

Sure, when we talk about winter driving, we usually lament snow squalls and blizzards, icy conditions and whiteouts. The solution is pretty simple: if you recognize these conditions and you are not a member of the police force, fire department or an emergency response unit, don't drive. Stay home. It's God's way of saying: "Can you bring me a beer from the kitchen, it's time to finally watch MacGruber."

But you can't escape the little things. No matter how long the trip, your car will reach its optimum temperature just before you reach your destination. If you get your car washed, the doors will freeze shut. At some point during the late winter ,you will be driving westward and look directly into the sun causing what feels like permanent blindness. On this you can rely.

To me, the worst little bothers are the icy cataracts that form on the wind screen.

It snows and I spend 10 minutes scraping and sweeping my car. I heat it up, crank the defroster and then it's time for my commute. There's just one problem: smack in the middle of the wind shield I spy what can only be described as an ice blob. It blocks my vision and obscures my view.

The law of probability would likely prove that there is no reason that blob couldn't be off to the right or left, where it would not be much of a visual hindrance. This law would be wrong. Because that blob is right in front at eye level making driving virtually impossible.

So I pull over. Scrape some more, shake the wipers, run my sweaty glove across the evasive smear. There. It's gone. Off we go. Of course, it's slushy so soon it's time to use the wind screen fluid. Squirt. Squirt. Wipe. Wipe. And voilà! Hello devious ice blob. Nice to see you right in front of me again! I will battle this silent smear for the rest of the journey, just as I have every winter since I got my licence.

I will never win. No one will. We are all powerless before winter's magnificent pettiness.

From the ordinary to the extraordinary, Peter Cheney would love to see one of these beauties under the tree. Santa, are you listening?

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