This is what happens when it's 5 degrees outside.

Michigan winter can be brutal. It's a fact of life. Having grown up in Michigan all my life, I have experienced many of winter's little tricks. My nose has frozen pinched shut. Tears have frozen on my face. I've probably been dangerously close to losing limbs. I've driven in umpteen inches of snow. It is what it is in Michigan.

Last night we had a blizzard. The wind was howling, snow was blowing, and we ended up with a good four or five inches at least.

Dad came home last night and said it was pretty much the iciest ever out, which is a total exaggeration having lived through many an ice storm, but I understood that he meant the roads seriously sucked.

My work never closes-- ever-- so this morning I got up for work and headed into town. You should know, if you don't already, that Michigan is broke, especially my hometown. The plows stopped last night at 8pm because they couldn't keep up and I'd swear on my life that Longway wasn't even looked at for plowing. Needless to say, the roads were thick with snowy ruts.

Driving in snow is a fantastic lesson in physics. Sometimes I'm amazed at how it all works, like when you're going straight then the car swerves a little and you're still going straight even though you're at a 35 degree angle. It's awesome (if it's me and nobody else is around.)

Anyway, I drove like a champion and just about made it to work when realized that I never got gas the other day. In this sort of weather, I'm not taking the risk of a sputtering gas tank. It was 5 degrees out this morning.

I stopped at the gas station that I hate but always go to (a blog for that another time) and pulled up to the pump. I thought, "Wow. That's a mighty frosted pump there," but parked anyway.

I got out, swiped my credit card, and waited.... And waited...

I started poking some buttons, trying to get it to do something more than ask if I want a car wash, and finally gas pump was like, "OMG! It's cold!" and stopped working. It froze. Literally, I think.

So I went inside and asked gas station lady to cancel my thing and she told me to move around to pump 10 or whatever. I move, pump the gas successfully, but then it wouldn't print my receipt. Duh. That should've been obvious.

So I went back inside and the lady was like, "You just wanted to get out of that cold. Can I offer you a free hot chocolate for all the hassle?" 

It occurred to me as I got back into my car that nobody else was at any of the pumps and that I hadn't seen any other cars at the gas station, which is normally busy. She was probably just giving me stuff to thank me for being the only person she's seen all day.  

Once I got to work, a "needy" guy looking for free gloves stopped by and rang the doorbell. I let him in (to look up directions for the place he was really looking for) and the doorbell stuck. For 30 minutes it went on, non-stop, until our exhibit guy came by with a space heater and held it in front of the doorbell to thaw it out. Two computery things freezing in one morning? That's new.

Gotta give props to winter for being so hardcore.