PleadingPaternalInsanityVille
It seemed like a good idea at the time.....
Which was back in October.
I'd been asked to do some science-geek promotional stuff up in the Northlands (ie. past Prince George) in the New Year and instead asked, "Hey! How about in the spring?"
Which suddenly became a reality when the good folks involved moved stuff around to make the dates work for Spring-Break so that the whole family could come too.
And so it came to pass that I told the Two E's and C about the big trip to come sometime around Halloween.
They responded by getting kinda/sorta got excited, but mostly it was 'Whatever.... Ya..... OK, sure'.
Not because they were blowing me off or anything (ha!).
Instead, I think it just seemed so far away at the time, that it didn't really register with them.
****
Anyway, over the last couple of weeks I started paying attention to the weather up there and was forced, after much initial denial, to finally conclude that it may not actually quite be spring yet.
I mean, last week they were having -25°C nights.
But at least it was a clear, dry cold, right?
Well, when I got up this morning and checked the long-range forecast I saw that I was way wrong about this too....
Which scared the bejeebuz out of me.
So, I immediately got on the phone thinking, end-of-season and all, that it would be a breeze to get some uber-snow-monster-mud-killer-ice-storm-armaggideon-times tires without even trying, at 50% off with the 4th one free.
Right?
Wrong.
Again.
****
Turns out that some new fangled Machiavellian (or should that be Michelinian?) mandatory snow-tire law in Quebec means that there are no winter tires anywhere to be found in the City of Vancouver that are not so expensive that only Condo Kings who got out early and/or Gang Bangers can afford them.
Luckily though, I did, with the help of guy in PoCo, manage to piece together a set that were not so expensive that I would be gouging my eyes out then entire trip.
And as a result, I daisy chained my way through a series of C.Tires and finally ended up in Maple Ridge, or Maple Meadows, or Maple Gardens, or whatever the heck that ugly hunk of nowhere is that is located under all those overpasses that must go somewhere as they sneer down at any and all pedestrians with sheer hatred and derision.
How do I know this?
The hatred and derision part, I mean.
Well, because I had to wait a couple of hours for the installation, I made the mistake of heading over to the nearby mall on foot, thinking that I'd be able to get hold of Saturday's Globe and, maybe, if I was lucky, a decent cup of coffee.
Believe it or not I actually found the latter, but there was no hope in heckfire of finding the former.
In fact, folks kept looking at me funny when I asked for it.
But that's not the worst of it.
Because on my way back to the Tire-Store that no longer gives 1% in Tartan-hatted bonus bucks, I made the mistake of trying to take the short way home.
Unfortunately, there were no sidewalks and people kept trying to either run me down or drench me to the bone by swerving towards nearby puddles slicked a sickening grey by the oppressive, endless overcast and the tar leaching up through the newly-poured blacktop.
And then, when I tried to make a break for it under one of the overpasses, I was suddenly seized upon by a viscious gang of thuggish security guards because I was, apparently, getting too close to Kevin Falcon's latest paean to pavement, elevated or otherwise.
As a result, I was forced to trek ever further away from said Tire-Store that had become little more than a speck in the distance. Then, finally, it disappeared altogether after I traversed a huge mountain of Tim Horton's cups lovingly left behind by roving hordes of construction workers over the eons and found myself stuck in a series of never-ending cul-de-sacs line with identical houses and street names that made no sense at all.
And that's when I finally started to run.....
_____
The tires are now safely on the car, which is the Mazda-not-quite-minivan as I just don't quite have it in me to drive 2,500 km of winter and mountain passes over the next six days in the VW (not-so)Microbus....Will we make it back alive?..... And if we do, how much fast-food and peanut-brittle will we consume?....Will the International Rummy Conspiracy steal my children?....Will Rosie the Whack-A-Doodle get lost in a snow bank?....Stay-tuned....
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