Thursday, February 25, 2010

The snow prisoners of S------n, Pennslyvania

If anyone staying the night at the Holiday Inn off I-84 in Northern Pennsylvania had looked outside their window around 5:15 this afternoon, they would have seen a hassled girl standing in the parking lot in the blizzard, cramming a small-ish corgi into a pink bin. She stuffs the dog's head down into a pile of clothes, but it keeps popping back up, like one of those bang-the-hippo arcade games. She makes one final effort to bury the dog, then picks up the bin and goes running across the parking lot and into the hotel.

That girl was me and that dog was, you guessed it- Hometeam. We are stranded at the Holiday Inn here in South- uuhhhhhhhh- Scranton. I HATE saying Scranton, Pennsylvania, only because it sounds too much like Scrotum, Pennsylvania and it makes my mouth feel weird. Say it aloud- see what I mean? But anyway, here I am, a Prisoner Of Winter. One of those idiots who heeded not the warnings of the weather forecasters and set off on a 900 mile, Northbound automobile trip.

I always drive from North Carolina to Vermont in one shot, meaning by the time I pass into New England I am usually chewing on coffee grounds and hallucinating sea creatures bubbling around outside the car. But not this time. Around the Maryland/Pennsylvania border, Garth Brooks' "Ain't Goin down till the Sun Comes up" was interrupted by those weird screeches and the robot guy informing me a "state of snow emergency" had been declared. Honesty, they weren't kidding. I slalomed my way through Jackknifed trucks and toppled minivans, thinking if I could just get onto highway 84 the conditions would improve. (Because that makes so much sense.)

I finally reached highway 84, slid off the first exit and into the only hotel around, the South --CENSORED-- Holiday Inn. As previously mentioned, I snuck in the little dog and she immediately claimed the king sized bed as HOMETEAM'S!

Since I'm not really interested in TV, I have nothing better to do than kill the hours taking pictures of my dog and posting them here. In advance: I'm really sorry.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

if you dont like the sound of scranton pa, good thing you didnt stop Intercourse Pennsylvania.(its near Lancaster)

Anonymous said...

As someone who has been stuck in PA for six and a half years now, and experiences the joys of Scranton every weekend, my most heartfelt condolences. Have fun up home - I wish I weren't such a wage slave and could go. By the way, you could always trade in the 'sounds like scrotum' issues for 'sounds like early pulp fiction' issues and call it The Electric City.
-VT Exile & fellow Pi Day Birthday