snowedin

It's November 6th, and it's been snowing the entire day. Colorado has two moods in November: unbearably sweltering or shiverously frozen. This year it decided to blizzard ferociously.

On Wednesday night I was at Josh's - we'd all been cozying up by their fireplace and participating in 'poetry night': a night where we share and discuss our favorite poetry or our own. It's Josh's night that his parents let him have (Jake has music night, where he plays guitar for us with Sam, Sammy has yoga night where he becomes our yoga instructor, and Ronnie used to have dance night until Jake slipped and fractured his arm).

After we had all shared our favorite poetry (I did a dramatic reading of Song of Myself by Walt Whitman), Josh and I decided we wanted to see the snow outside. So we bundled up in cozy socks and boots and layered sweaters and mittens and earmuffs, and climbed into his dodge dart to go for a drive to see the pretty snow falling outside. We brought hot drinks with us and a Bill Evans Trio CD to listen to, leaving our phones on the kitchen counter. Well, Josh turns into a dumbass when he sits behind the wheel and this occasion was no different. He somehow got into his mind that he wanted to off road his 60 year old vehicle to "see the trees better". I begged him not to but he was too cocky to care, and we got stuck in the snow about 10 seconds after we'd abandoned the road. So, we're in the middle of Hicktown, Black Forest in a "neighborhood" of about 12 people: snow is falling, and Josh's wheel are spinning.

He finally gave up and shut the engine off and we immediately feel the cold of the outside world. As we're sitting and listening to I Love You Porgy, we only hope that a redneck would see us and save us. We can't call anyone.

He offhandedly comments about how he should have brought his flare gun and then orders me to sit in the back seat while he follows. I climb over the front seat and tumble into the rear and wonder if this is really happening. How could we have forgotten our phones? It's goddamn cold and it's going to keep snowing until Saturday, are we totally and completely and utterly fucked? The thought of that made me anxious as hell, and I started to cry like I usually do because I'm a big baby. That made Josh feel sad so he held my hand and he promised me that someone would find us, but I wasn't so sure. 

After twenty more minutes of no action, we finally gave in. The only thing we could see was the falling snow outside. So Josh reached under the seat and found two blankets, which we wrapped ourselves with. Luckily temperature wasn't a huge issue: we were dressed warm, we had these blankets, and most importantly we had each other. We held each other tight and I was able to smoosh my face into Josh's sweater for warmth. The backseat isn't very big so we had to be superbly close to each other, which was awesome. We fell asleep somewhat uneasily and with mostly uncertainty about how this all would turn out. But just having Josh there helped with the uncertainty.

I had dreams about waking up in the snow and freezing to death, or that Trump had agreed to marshal law, to which I woke up and remembered I was there with Josh and it was okay - but the night seemed to take ages to complete. Somehow Josh slept soundly, with his hair softly resting on his face, probably dreaming of rainbows and puppies.

At around 6 or 7 in the morning, a stab of light through the window woke up the both of us and we remembered where we were. Josh's nose was pink. After gaining consciousness, we felt another stab of light in our eyes. It was someone flashing a light through the window at us: we must have looked like corpses. It was a police officer, who had pulled up next to us. Josh kicked the door open which freaked out the officer, who then began to question us.

While wiping the sleep out of his eyes, Josh looked up to see the officer's face light up and start laughing like he'd just remembered a joke. Suddenly the officer started spewing information about Josh: "You're that little singer in that band," and he started telling us how many shows he'd been to. "I thought I recognized this car."

Josh was dumbfounded, although he shouldn't have been. The group had garnered quite an audience with each show, and they'd become pretty locally renowned. Josh rarely got recognized, but he still did on occasion. So what? Some police officer catches you fused together with your girlfriend in the back of your damn car during a blizzard at 6 in the morning. Nothing out of the ordinary. 

While Josh and the officer stared into each others' souls, I thought I'd be productive and ask the guy to call Josh's parents since neither of us had our phones on us. So that morning, his parents got a call from the police at 6 in the morning. But it wasn't the usual "your son got caught streaking on main street," but "I found your son sleeping in his car in the woods during a blizzard." For some reason, the officer hadn't any equipment to pull us out of the snow, so he left it up to Josh's parents. Apparently, his dad had driven by that night nearly seven times, but still had failed to see the bright blue car. He must have thought Josh and I eloped.

When Papa K pulled the dodge out with his truck, we looked at him sheepishly. I made sure to tell Papa K that I'd advised Josh not to go off-roading.

When we'd finally gotten back home, Mama K told us that for the rest of the winter season we couldn't go "get lost", which is what we call it when we get in the car and drive to nowhere.

We spent the rest of the day gaining back lost sleep.