cold enough for ya?

This morning, I joined several other tenants in some early morning car scraping activities that the cold weather has brought about. I started the ignition and, like the other twenty people who were already slowly moving around their cars, brushing and scraping as they went, I grabbed my own scraper and began clearing off a small circular portal which I was hoping would reveal enough of the road in front of me to provide safe passage to work.

One of the main things I hate about this time of year is the forced small talk that you have to engage in while scraping away at your windshield. As is often the case, a fellow scraper enters into your politeness zone, the area at which it becomes rude to ignore someone, and you’re forced to acknowledge them.

And, while scraping away the layers of ice from your car, the small talk is always a variation of the same theme. “Boy, isn’t winter fun?” or “Cold enough for ya?” or “I can’t wait until summer!” A non-English speaking driver could learn only these three phrases and be readily accepted in our parking lot during the months of December through March.

This morning, as I scraped my way around to the passenger side window, a young lady who was scraping her way toward the driver’s side window of her car passed into my politeness zone. I sighed, resigned myself to another five second weatherish conversation, and glanced over at her.

But she surprised me by looking over her shoulder and saying, “you know, sometimes late at night, I lie awake in my bed and question the existence of God.”

Completely caught off guard by this transgression from the norm, I said, “well, it’s impossible to scientifically prove the existence of God, since He doesn’t exist in the material sense of ‘being’. Rather, the concept of a higher power lies more in faith, because it’s really the spirit of God we’re all searching for…not the physical presence.”

We paused and stared at each other amidst the drifting snow and rising exhaust fumes, until she finally broke the silence by saying, “boy, isn’t winter fun?”

“I can’t wait until summer!” I told her. And giving a final scrape across the window, I climbed into my car and headed off to work.