Motorist in Buffalo Blizzard Eats Own Liver to Survive
Douglas Sassaman
galactic scale - http://CosmicBurp.com
Motorist in Buffalo Blizzard Eats Own Liver to Survive
"What is your citizenship?" The border guard asked as I stopped at the U.S.
line crossing over from Canada into upstate New York.
"I live in New Hampshire," I blurted out.
"Where were you born?"
"In Niles, Michigan."
"That would make you a U.S. citizen."
"Oh.right."
"The weather gets pretty bad a little further down the road,"
"Really?" Yeah, yeah, yeah, just wave me through border-boy.
"Yep. Big snowstorm hitting the Buffalo area."
"Wow." Whatever. I looked about me at the dry road, brown grass,
remarkable only in their complete lack of snow.
"I'd use extreme caution going forward."
"I will, thanks." Come on, wave me through Mr. Safety. Snowstorms don't
just spring up out of the ground I told myself, but I was to find out that
in Buffalo they do, like daisies in Spring.
You may have heard about the blizzard in Buffalo a week ago. The one in
which the Mayor declared a state of emergency. The one in which the
National Guard was called in and snow was airlifted out of the city. The
one that rivaled the blizzard of '77, which for Buffalo, need not stretch
your imagination (30 inches of snow in less than a day).
And into this maelstrom I proceeded, returning from a visit with my folks in
Michigan to my home in New Hampshire, concerned solely with finding Dr.
Laura on the AM dial-nothing passes time better on the road I found than
listening to Dr. Laura dole out moral virtue like food stamps.
I merged onto I-290 on the outskirts of Buffalo and slowly my safe tenuously
constructed little world began to crumble. First the snow, it began in a
pleasant fashion, lightly buffeting my windshield, but then in the span of
time it took Dr. Laura to condemn a man for sleeping with his wife's 3rd
cousin, the wipers started having trouble keeping up with the sudden deluge.
Then the pavement became lost beneath a layer of ice and packed snow. I
tightened my grip, leaned forward, and squinted into the gloom. And
finally, traffic on I-290 slowed, crawled, and then came to a complete and
utter stop.
It was at this point, sandwiched between two 18-wheelers with all manner of
weather outside my car, that I took stock of my situation. Gas hovered
around a ź tank, no food or water, nothing substantial for warmth, and I had
to pee-very badly in fact.
Over the course of the next three hours four predictable things occurred:
1. I became hungrier.
2. I tried to ascertain if the trucker next to me would be able to see
me if I peed into an empty plastic bottle.
3. The traffic didn't budge.
4. And the weather worsened-not content with just a blizzard,
thunderbolts could now be seen in the distance. I tuned Dr. Laura back in
to see if the end of the world was nigh, but she made no mention of it.
It was sometime during the next hour, locked in my icy tomb, that I switched
into a feral survival state. I peed into the narrow neck plastic bottle in
a wanton manner, not caring if truckers or school buses were in evidence. I
considered eating my liver for sustenance until I recalled that my dear
mother packed a pumpkin pie for me and placed it on the back seat. I sang
her praises of the highest order as I peeled off the Tupperware lid and
stuffed fistfuls of pie into my mouth.
Then later, just as I was reconsidering my liver, the traffic nudged
forward, not much, but just enough to open a narrow fissure between trucks.
I leapt into the breach and followed another car down the shoulder towards
an exit-to where, I cared not. I made it off I-290 and onto a road that was
fabulously deep in snow. At a 'T' intersection I went left, lured by a neon
sign in that direction. My car fishtailed and surfed as I guided her
towards the neon beacon in the distance.
The beacon turned out to be a hotel sign, the Gods it seemed, were going to
spare me this night. I elbowed the nose of my car into a snow bank, waded
through knee-deep snow in my penny loafers, and through the front door of
the hotel.
Cookies, they had a plate of chocolate chip cookies on the counter. With
all the mayhem, confusion, and emergency room like atmosphere in the place,
I marveled that they could maintain a neatly laid stack of chocolate chip
cookies. I had three, chocolate-chip-macadamia-nut cookies to be precise,
and was going in for a fourth when the woman behind the counter interrupted
me in mid-swoop and mid-munch, "Can I help you sir?"
"Yesth, du you hath any roomths avaathable." She tapped furiously at her
computer. I eyed the lobby for possible bunk sites.
"We have a room with a king still available."
"Reathy? I'll thake it."
She looked distastefully at my cookie crumb exterior, then said in a tight
voice, "Is non-smoking alright?" My talons were still poised above that
fourth cookie.
"Yeth ththt's fine." I swallowed the last bit of cookie and then inquired,
"How much is the room?"
"Eighty dollars a night." And with that I seized the fourth cookie and slid
it neatly into my pocket. She handed me the key, and I bounded up the
stairs like a schoolboy. A room! I have a room! Gods be praised! Not
only did I not eat my liver, but I have a room!
Once inside my room I turned the up heat to match the current temp in Fiji.
I lounged around in my boxers and shin high athletic socks, ordered pricey
room service, and watched pay-per-view movies as the blizzard of the
millennium raged outside. For the time being at least, life was good.
Next week: Can our intrepid hero escape from Buffalo?
"The following morning a state of emergency was declared, the National Guard
was called in, the I-90 Thruway was closed all the way to Rochester, and a
driving ban was in place. To say that it looked unlikely I'd make it out of
Buffalo that day would have been an understatement of galactic proportions,
but always one for adventure, I decided to give it a go."
Copyright 2000 Douglas S. Sassaman http://CosmicBurp.com
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