Snowpocalypse.

I've never been to a third world country. I've heard stories though. About Americans arriving and riding in little rickeshaws through shantytowns and seeing all kinds of unusual, disturbing, unfamiliar things that make them appreciate how good they have it back home.

I'm not comparing Missouri to a third world country. And I'm not pretending that 10-12 inches of snow is the end of the world. I know there are people just a few hours North of me who would totally make fun of everything I'm about to say, but I'm still going to say it. I also completely understand that I'm being overly dramatic about this, but the Texas-flavored part of my brain got traumatized this morning and I need to talk about it.

A fraction of that "entering a third world country" feeling is exactly what I felt during my snowy commute to work this morning. When I got in the car? It was fine. My husband had cleared most of the snow from my little Honda and I navigated our never-plowed, snow covered street with relative ease, eventually coming to a plowed, more well-traveled street. It was mushy and dirty and lumpy, but navigable (I have used that word so many times this week. I hope it's real). I made it through some local traffic onto the highway, where I watched the car in front of me slide all over the entrance ramp. I followed suit in a less willy-nilly fashion, gripping my steering wheel.

I made it on to the fairly empty highway, managed to locate some lane-defining lines under the slush-laden road and began my usually 25 minute journey to CTA. The drive was uneventful for the first 5 minutes on the highway. But then. THEN.

Y'all.

It was horrible. I've never been so untrusting of other drivers in my life. No one knew where the lanes were. Everyone was just following ruts in the road. Cars were ambling down the highway in snow-covered packs, moving the way confused elephants would if they were forced to travel a long distance over arctic tundra. Top speed on my commute this morning? 25mph. With snow blustering through the air the entire time.

There were cars stranded, stopped in the middle of the highway. People wandering around on the shoulder, talking on phones. Police cars with lights flashing, not indicating where in the world they were trying to get to or who they intended to help. Lines forming at exit ramps, waiting on snow plows to clear the impossibly dangerous exits. Cars going nowhere, spinning their wheels in snowdrifts that were once entrance ramps. People with 4 wheel drive, flying like slippery idiots past the rest of us, slinging sludgy ice all over the place. Trucks pulling off the road to help nudge people from the snowdrifty quicksand of the entrance ramps. Tires spinning and spinning, just CAKED with snow. People trying to push their cars back onto the road, people sitting in their stalled cars on their phones, freaking out. I even drove past a car that was stopped in the middle of an intersection with the front tire hanging halfway off the rim. I have no idea what happened to that dude.

Part of me wanted to stop and try to help, but the majority of me was just shocked and terrified and could not even conceive of stopping my car until I was safe in the CTA parking lot. Maybe if I was a dude with a truck and nowhere to be... but I just couldn't. It took me an hour and 15 minutes to get to work. And when I arrived, I released a breath I did not realize I'd been holding.

You have to understand; possessing a mind that was programmed largely in Texas, I don't understand how the world continues to operate on a real-life schedule when there is that much snow happening. In Texas, school gets closed for like, an inch of snow. Sometimes less. Sometimes school gets closed just for slushy ice. You stay in your house. You scrape the accumulation off the car and into a small snowman, you put a snowball in the freezer, and that's it! There is no manuevering through the madness! There is no going to work!

At least there wasn't for me.

I'm not saying I can't adapt to this, I'm just saying it hasn't happened yet. Fortunately, my husband is not freaked out by any of this and has given me pointers on snow driving. I follow his advice expressly.

But I cannot even pretend to believe that I enjoy this aspect of life in the midwest.

It's 4 o'clock now and the sun is shining and the snow has finally stopped falling, but it is absolutely everywhere and it's time for me to go home. I can already hear two sirens.

As Mudear would say, "Oooo, Lord, I will come to thee."

Pray for me, y'all.