Flakes (part one)

SNOWMAGGEDON HITS TORONTO

The weather report predicted that the sky would fall. Well, that may be a bit of an exaggeration but not so much more than the folly foisted on the city of Toronto by weather forecasters desperate to call a 'flurry' a 'blizzard.'  We were scheduled to go out for a meeting and when we got outside we found that there was a fair bit of snow on the ground and that most of the curb cuts were simply inaccessible. On our way home I ended up having to drive down a bit of Yonge Street simply because I couldn't get on the sidewalk.

By then snow was falling in big fluffy flakes and, sitting in the wheelchair, I was soon covered with a thick layer of white. I looked a bit like a snow drift on wheels. I carefully maneuvered my way south down the street. I was hardly alone on the road. Other drivers were carefully making their way along side of me. My heart was pumping a bit faster than usual at the sheer anxiety of traversing a slippery surface on indoor tires next to huge cars steered by drivers with knuckles whiter than snow.

One car in particular was moving at snail's pace. Drivers were getting impatient and glanced over at me with either envy or hostility depending on their mood or their medication. See, I simply slowly made my way past them. I was suddenly not only in the fast lane but actually was the fast lane. When I got up to the driver going slower than the low setting on my power chair, she glanced over at me and saw me gently and slowly pass by her.

The look on her face is one that I will remember for the rest of my life. I thought, 'So this is what all those folks in 'middle of nowhere-ville' look like just before being abducted by aliens.' I fixed a smile on my face intended to look friendly but I think with my hat down over my head, my scarf wrapped around the bottom of my face, I might have looked a bit too much like a Martian about to do an anal probe in the cause of interstellar healthcare.  Why do I say this? Because as she was staring at me pulling by, fear all over her face, she unconsciously steered her car over towards me. Suddenly I was being chased down Yonge Street by a car that is only ever bought in car boutiques by people who proudly wear perfume tested on animals.

I quickly turned off on to my home street and did a fishtail because of the speed.

Snowmaggedon came to Toronto and I got one hell of a good story out of it.

Tomorrow, 'Dave's Outing, part two'.