I went to Roop’s house this weekend for our anniversary. I had an exam this morning at 9am, but instead of coming home yesterday afternoon, I came back this morning. It’s normally a 4.5-hour drive, so I left at 3am, giving myself 6 hours to get there to factor in any possible rush hour traffic and whatever else could happen. Leaving at 3am and getting 4 hours of sleep seemed like it would be worth it to spend an extra 7 or 8 hours awake with him. That choice led to probably the worst drive I’ve ever taken.

To start off, someone broke my passenger’s side mirror last night. Probably some drunk idiots from the sports bar next to his house did it after the Super Bowl. Then I got to drive through the worst snow I’ve ever driven in. NEW YORK DOES NOT HAVE ITS SHIT TOGETHER! As I said in a previous journal, you would think a county right on the border of Lake Ontario would actually know how to prepare for snowstorms. The snow itself was pretty heavy, but for a half hour I was literally driving through at least 8 inches of snow. Where the fuck were the snow plows? Three times I had to come to a complete stop on the highway because even at 10 mph I was kicking up too much snow to be able to see anything. Once I literally got out of my car and wiped off my windows. In the middle of the road. At this point, I was glad it was 3am and no one was out driving. I actually debated just turning back and emailing my professor telling her I couldn’t make it. Luckily my philosophy of “the farther away from the lake I get, the better it will be” actually worked.

Can’t stop a Jersey driver.

After a half hour of what seemed like driving through a blizzard, the snow slowly started to decrease and the roads got slowly better. Maybe after an hour total the roads were completely clear. Then came problem #2. In addition to my broken mirror, my windows were all icing up. From the inside. I had to stop 3 times, twice along the side of the highway and once at a rest area, to scrape off the inside of the windows so I could see. This was all made so much more fun by the fact that my windshield wipers are shit. The back one is misaligned and doesn’t do anything, and the ones in the front are shitty and were just spreading the salt and dirt from the road more than anything else.

And since these things always happen in threes, there was one last adventure to deal with. Fast-forward a couple hours. The sun is finally up, I can actually see, and I’m about a half hour from my school making decent time, all things considered. I come up to an area where the morning rush hour is always the worst, an exit on the highway where 2 of the longest roads in the US meet. There was some traffic, and at first I didn’t make anything of it. It took me over 30 minutes to go 2 miles. Usually it only takes 5-8 minutes at worst to get through this area. I thought there must have been an accident. Nope. There was a van parked along the side of the road. Fuck people. I HATE how everyone has to stop and stare at anything that even looks like it might be an accident. I ended up (speed) walking into the exam room at 8:57am without being able to go back to my dorm to regroup and get food after a 6-hour long drive from hell after getting 4 hours of sleep the night before.

Still kicked the exam’s ass.