When I was a dumb, young college student, I thought all winter weather was the same. Snow. Sleet. Slush. Ice. What’s the difference? It all makes you cold.
One frosty night in the Outlets Limited Mall Parking lot - now known as Garden Ridge - I learned my lesson the hard way.
All of these details came back to me last night with news of our impending ice storm.
Back in my college years, I was hired to work at the hot dog stand in the mall. Later, I got a second job, cooking Chinese food down the hall. The make-up of the Outlets Limited Mall was fairly simple. It was shaped like a plus sign (+). Stores and shoppes lined both sides of each of the four halls. In the middle – with walkways on both sides – were small kiosks. Most of them were small eateries.
So, you see, I helped staff two of them. The hot dog stand was located just below the midpoint (on the downside of the up and down line in the ‘plus sign’) where as the Chinese stand was just to the left of the midpoint. The midpoint housed one of the real attractions in the mall, a sweet shoppe called ‘The Yummy Carousel.’ As its name suggested, it was shaped like a carousel and the products served were, well, yummy! Ice cream. Candy. Fudge.
Yummy.
My friends Bridget and Deedra worked at Yummy. Throughout the rest of the mall, shoppers could find a wide array of stores from men’s, women’s and children’s clothing outlet stores, to shoe shops, to stores with handbags and accessories. There was a lot of variety in that mall.
In addition to the eateries I mentioned, there was also a sub shop and a bagelry. Storage places for these food kiosks, generally speaking, were at the ends of the halls (and down an additional back hall).
So, all of that gives you some background about the place where I went to work at the mall on that cold January night.
I clocked in at work for my usual evening shift. Throughout the evening, all of us workers (and some of the shoppers) were getting information about the deteriorating winter conditions. When I finished my shift, I went out to my car. I was sure I’d have no problems making the five mile trek home.
I made it about halfway through the parking lot when I learned my icy lesson.
Legs flew out from under my body in an instant and it seemed like it took about a millisecond for all of me to strike the cold, hard pavement in one uncomfortable crash. As you can imagine, standing back up – while preserving my dignity – was somewhat challenging.
At the moment when I realized I had tremendous physical pain, I also realized something else. I wasn’t going anywhere.
I made it back inside the mall (by then only a handful of workers remained) and I reported what happened. Next, I called home to tell my folks that I was planning to stay put. Bridget, who had been working that night at the Yummy Carousel was also there. I think she was a bit apprehensive about staying. I spoke to her folks on the telephone and assured them I’d look after her.
And thus began a late night adventure in the mall.
All of the eateries opened back up and we all began serving food to each other. I cooked some fresh hot dogs and, when requested, some microwave pizza. I brewed a fresh pot of coffee. Meanwhile, down at the sandwich shoppe, you could get hot, steamed sandwiches. I went down, at one point, and had one of my patented turkey sandwiches.
Talk about yummy!
Apart from eating, we chatted and visited. Seems like, at one point, someone got a card game going. I tried to sleep around 2 a.m. but it didn’t take me long to learn that a cold concrete floor was no substitute for a warm bed. I abandoned the notion, soon, and rejoined the party.
As is frequently the case with weather systems like this, all it took was a warm pocket of air to change the sleet and freezing rain back to rain. And with a few minutes of rain, the ice melted. Once the ice melted, we could all go home.
I think I left the mall around 7 a.m. I got home and recounted some tales from my adventure and then I crawled in my bed with lessons learned.
If some know-it-all college-aged boy tells you driving in ice is like driving in snow, tell him you know better.
Tell him you learned it from another guy who learned it the hard way. Concrete hard.
JG
Originally posted 1/25/2013
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