Six-and-a-Half Hours

That's how long it took me to get home from work yesterday.

Six-and-a-half hours.

I could've driven from the Boston area to Baltimore in that time. Instead, I spent those clenched, nerve-wracking hours driving on the snow-covered, clogged and slippery (UNPLOWED! Even on major highways that were not congested) trying to make it home in what is normally a 90-minute trip.

Before I even left work, I received an automated phone call on my cell phone from my children's school department telling me that school was letting out two hours early. Even if I'd left work the moment I got that call, given the conditions of Massachusetts highways yesterday (gridlock beyond belief) I would've never made it back in time. I wound up placing several frantic phone calls, trying to find anyone who could get the kids off the bus. Lucky for me, one of my neighbors was indeed available. Initially, I thought she'd only have to watch the three kids for a half-hour. Then, after I came face-to-face with the worst commute of my life, she wound up watching them for four-and-a-half hours and fed them dinner, which was a good thing seeing as though I still had no food in the house yesterday.

When I finally made it home, leaving my minivan in the street in front of my house because I couldn't get into my driveway, then trudged through 10+ inches of snow to my neighbor's house to pick up the kids, they, the charmers that they are, gave me grief. They didn't want to leave. It had been a kid-friendly winter wonderland over there. They'd gone sledding, had snowball fights, had dinner and snacks, watched "Rudolph" on TV, played a pretend game of Harry Potter and were in the middle of filling a Mad Lib with all manner of juvenile, toilet-related humor when I arrived and dragged them out of a warm, magical neighbor's home. As we slogged through the snow, they said they couldn't understand why I was in such a foul mood.

"I was in the car for six-and-a-half hours!" I wearily replied. "I had to stop on the side of the road tons of times to chop ice off of my windshield wipers. I was so nervous."

"You've already told us that Mom," my 9-year-old son quipped as he tossed his snowpants into the garage. "We get it."

As for The Spouse, he tried repeatedly to get home, but when his car got stuck in a snowbank, he abandoned it on the side of the road, until about 9:30 p.m. or so when he got a group of guys together to shove his car out of the snow and onto the streets. He rolled in at around 10:30.

Between now and New Year's, I am officially not singing any snow-related Christmas songs that speak in glowing terms about the white, freezing matter. Me and snow, to crib a line from an old "Gilmore Girls" episode, we're not on speaking terms right now.

(Image from the Boston Herald.)