When I left for work this morning, it was -14 and the wind chill was somewhere around -30. If you've never experienced -30, I probably can't do it justice in words. But it's so cold that your eyes water...and then your eyelashes promptly freeze together! Then the inside of your nose freezes together! I had on two pair of socks under my boots, wind pants over my dress pants, a hat under my hood, and gloves under my mittens and I was still none too warm. The one hazard: when you cover your face with your scarf and keep breathing, eventually your breath forms condensation on the scarf. Once it gets damp from that, it almost does more harm than good!
My work day was fairly uneventful; nothing really to report about that. I was really grateful to have a toasty warm office, though. I didn't envy Juan the Door Man who spent the whole day outside! (He lived to tell the tale.)
After work, I joined some of my co-workers across the street for a going-away beverage (one of our dining room managers is moving away). That seemed as good an excuse as any to take a cab, but I had to walk two blocks to find one. Zoned out a little bit on the ride and next thing I knew, I heard a crunch/thud - we'd been rear-ended by another cab in the gridlock! (I'm fine; the other cab got the worst of it.) Still managed to make my train, thankfully. But then...
...about four stops into the trip, we came to a halt. That's not unusual, especially during rush hour. (The way the trains are scheduled, they have a tendency to catch up to each other along the way. Because they can only be so close together, the ones behind do a slow roll to keep enough space between them.) A few minutes later, the conductor came over the PA and told us that the switch was frozen in front of us. 20 minutes went by before the "switch maintainers" showed up to clear off the switch. Really, was this a surprise? Switches have been freezing all over the Chicagoland area for a day and a half. A train went through that very switch no more than half an hour before we did. But it was frozen nonetheless. Good thing I had my iPod. 30 minutes went by...then 40. FIFTY-SIX MINUTES LATER, we finally got rolling again. *sigh* I can't be mad; the train is better than driving any day of the week. It was, however, supremely annoying!
Apparently my status as a drama magnet has followed me to Chicago! Hope you got as good a laugh out of this as I did :)
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