Winter, how you try my patience

Winter arrived yesterday with a snow storm. Then it warmed up and rained. And of course, after that it got cold again and snowed. Because winter, you know, is like that. Mean.

This morning I went over to the parking lot to pick up the key for the community car and found that the lock box was frozen solid.  I could turn my key but couldn't remove the metal plate to get to the keys.  I tried the second lock box and the same thing happened. Feeling very MacGyver-ish, despite it being 8am, on a Saturday morning, standing on ice, in the blowing snow - I found a pen in my purse and tried to scrape away some of the ice that was holding the plate in. Five minutes later, now with my nose running and freezing all at the same time, I gave up and decided to go home and get one of those really sharp utility knives. Back with my knife, I started scraping again, broke a few blades off, pushed the next one up, and then scraped too hard because the whole blade thing fell out of the knife and when I tried to put it back in, put the blade in the wrong slot and then couldn't get it out to move it up or down in the shaft. At this point I called the community car service and explained what was going on and how it was impossible for me to get the car back in time, if I ever did manage to get in the lock box to the key. The agent was able to change my reservation time and car. Phew! But would I be able to get to a key?

Question for you, my audience - sensing my frustration yet?  Oh, it was there. Believe you me.

Back home for my back up utility knife and back to the parking lot. More scraping, more blades, more trying to open the lock boxes. NOTHING. NADA. I gave up and tried calling the car service again, only to get stuck on hold as I was walking over to a second (further) car location and then my phone DIED. Don't know if it's because my phone is old or because it was cold and the cold drained the battery really fast or maybe a combination of the two but now I had to turn around to walk home to plug in my phone to call the car service again. (And there was much heavy sighing.)

Naturally by this time I was all out of what little patience I had to start with. Now with my phone plugged in, I was able to call the car service again, get stuck on hold for 15 minutes and finally speak with another agent (so I got to repeat the whole story again, lucky me!) who cancelled my reservation at the first location and added one to the second location (about a 10 minute walk away). 

You'd think by this point the story would be finished, right? WRONG!

Now that I get to a lock box that opens (!), when I put the key into the car door, it was a bit sticky and guess what? The key wouldn't go all the way in! HA! Yes, there was ICE IN IT!  What a surprise, I know.  So, I opened the door from the passenger's side and got it unlocked that way. (Much more heavy sighing.)  Don't forget I still had to brush the snow from the car and scrape the ice off all the windows. A further 10 minutes was spent doing that and finally by 9:15am - a full hour and a quarter after leaving my house - I was on my way to do my groceries. A very quick shop, return home to drop off the bags and then I zipped back to the parking lot and was able to drop off the car with 10 minutes to spare before my 10am return time. Finally, a horribly cold walk back home, into the wind and blowing snow and finally, time for breakfast.

I can certainly say I earned it today.

On my way out to dinner soon. Hopefully public transportation won't try my patience as much as winter has already today.

*SIGH*