Fun with Exposure!

[Captain]

Boy am I glad my first sporran (a BK Inverness) is arriving next week!

I was out during the "Terrible Winter Disaster of Light Freezing Mist of 2007" (boy Texans are wusses when it comes to winter weather!) and was just coming back from having a little bit of Red Breast Irish Whiskey and showing my little sister (visiting from Michigan) one of my favorite pubs here in the DFW area. We walked to the car... there was no (ABSOLUTELY ZERO) wind. We got in the car, and as usual, I just started up the car and pulled away... While driving through the parking lot I noticed there was a smidgen of ice on the windshield, and it just so happened to be right in the middle of where I look. So I parked in the last parking spot in the lot and hopped out to scrape it off real quick... Only to find out that in the time it took me to drive from one end of the parking lot to the other, a gale force wind had whipped up!

With no sporran to hold down the front... I decided it would be better to hold down the apron, and let the world take a look at what my wife describes as a "cute little butt" (she's also slightly mentally ill... I mean she did marry me ) while I desperately tried to get back in the car as soon as possible!

My sister is of course cracking up... but only because the car door acted as the standards and practices bureau for the sit-com my life had suddenly become. In her words, "All I saw was bits of tartan flying every where and you giving a Marilyn Monroe impression..."

Ahhhh... the joys of wearing a kilt... Good thing I don't embarrass easily! (It's also a good thing that the native Texans all stayed home with their 8 gallons of gasoline for their generators and their storehouses of bottled water and canned goods... that way no one was there to actually see it...)

[Bill]

Glad you came out of that unscathed! I spent almost a year in Fort Worth in the 80's and the very best driving I had was during an ice storm that laid down about a quarter of an inch over everything, coming from Wyo. I wasn't that bothered by it just took my time getting home. It was nice because no-one else was on the road. so my commute home from work was a rare moment of peace.

Slainte'
Bill

[McMurdo]

I was broke down on the side of the highway while in my kilt earlier on this week, in the middle of a snowstorm, not fun at all. Funny thing was the tow truck driver never said a word about my kilt.

[pdcorlis]

Too funny Captain - too funny!

[GMan]

OK I must admit I thought you were going to ask about the right amount of time in which exposure to Kilt wearing stops people from asking those questions. However I do find your story a great joy to hear. Wind is the only concern I have about wearing the Kilt, cold is insignificant.

[sorcererdale]

I guess your windshield washer fluid doesn't have the anti freezing stuff in it. We just spray our windshields and the liquid melts most of the ice and we let the defrosters do the rest.

Coming back from NY state and driving through Canada, we had high winds and thus used more gas than on our way there. My son thought he could make it, but we ran out of gas just by the boarder. Gas is cheaper in the states. He quickly tried to find a gas station, and we would have made it except for the long red light at the intersection one block from the gas station.

His car died right there, and he said it would be best to push it out of the intersection and then he would go and get gas in a can to put in the car. Well, I had on my black Survival and going regimental as I always do. I was pushing from the back passenger side door and you know how the wind seems to come up from under the car. I felt the back of my kilt going up, and since I was pushing, couldn't do anything about it.

I could feel the wind, but am not really sure how high the kilt went up. Of course I was on the center side of the intersection where there were cars all around and people walking, but since I didn't hear any car horn toots or yells, I guess they didn't see anything! I told my wife about that when I got back in the car and she didn't say anything. She was probably trying to hold in a laugh.

DALE.

[Tattoo Bradley]

Quite the story.

[Captain]

I guess your windshield washer fluid doesn't have the anti freezing stuff in it.

Yeah, you could find that stuff anywhere when I lived in Chicago... but it's a little rarer in these here parts... That and sand bags!

Oh boy... we get our first ice back in December some time and I pop in at Wal-Mart and darn near every hardware store in town to find some tube sand so I get a little bit of traction in my pickup truck on the ice. Every single clerk I asked looked at me like I was crazy. It went something like this:

Me: "Hey, do you guys have any tube sand?"

Clerk: "Huh? What's that?"

Me: "You know, sandbags... 60-70 lbs of sand in a tough nylon bag that you can throw in the back of your truck so you get traction on ice..."

Clerk: "We have some play sand... would that work?"

Me: "Uhhh... play sand? In a paper bag? A paper bag that when it gets wet will fall apart and fill my truck bed with fine sand that will run out all over the road?"

Clerk: "Yep."

Me: "No thanks."

I finally had some imported in from Michigan when my mom came to visit! Grr... Arg!

It's no wonder this state shuts down when it gets cold!

Anyway... yeah, if I'd had some de-icer windshield washing fluid... this never would have happened... and you guys couldn't laugh at me showing my bum to an empty parking lot!

[auld argonian]

That play sand comes in plastic bags at the Walmarts that I've been at...not the reinforced plastic bags but they would probably hold up pretty well.

Loved the story that the Car Guys told on NPR a couple of weeks ago about the one brother's "logical" idea that, since he had a waterproof liner in the bed of the truck, he should put some water in there and let it freeze and the weight of the ice would give him weight in the rear and thus give him some traction. I'm sure that you can see this one coming, right? As it thawed out, he had a big ice cube floating arond in the bed that slammed into the ack of the cab every time he hit the brakes and slammed into the rear gate every time he gassed it. Smart brains.

Just slow down...it's human nature to drive to fast for conditions and you have to supress the urge and hope that the rest of the drivers can do the same...it only takes one @$$#*!@ to cause a major accident in icy conditions.

Good luck

Best

AA

[Captain]

I agree... slowing down is the biggest part of driving in winter conditions... something else they don't do down here...