AUBREEVISION - Observations from the far side of the dial

Spent the major part of the day in the Canadian Tire auto service waiting area, eating gummi bears and drinking vending machine coffee. Eric was attempting to drive me to a testing session for a government job when his front right tire shredded all over the highway. We sat in the breakdown lane for an hour or so, praying a wayward bus wouldn't rear-end us into oblivion (I've heard the horror stories). As it was, we witnessed two accidents in the rearview mirror -- cars spontaneously flinging themselves off the highway, or so their black-ice ballet appeared. Did I mention that the windchill made it a cozy -46 degrees Celsius?

To add insult to (fortunately non-physical) injury, Eric got a recorded message when calling CAA: "Due to extreme weather conditions and high call volume, we cannot take any calls for emergency assistance at this time. Please call back later." Hello, isn't the whole point of roadside assistance to bail you out when, say, you need roadside assistance? To give you increased peace of mind? It's rather disconcerting to find out they're not there when you need them, apparently not anticipating that a) Canada in winter is a godawful icescape and b) godawful icescape = high accident volume = get more tow trucks.

I'd fortunately programmed the Mastercard Road Assist toll-free number into my cellphone a mere two days ago, even though I don't own a car, on the off chance it might come in handy. They condescended to answer the phone, and since they sub-contract to CAA, it was one of their fleet who bailed us out after all. Several hours and $600 later, Eric's car had two new tires and we made our way home. Needless to say, I didn't make it to the job testing....

It's just past midnight and the roads situation hasn't much improved -- we just saw two cars spin off the street in front of the house. It's days like this, when walking outside gives you frostbite and driving is taking your life into your hands, that make me wonder if it's entirely natural to live in such a climate.