It's effing cold here and Kelly is an idiot

This story might be confusing to those of you who live in warmer climates and are not familiar with the need to plug cars in. No, our cars are not electric. We plug the block heater in to keep the engine block warm so the car will start when it’s cold.

We’ve been in quite a deep freeze here in central Canada. Apparently it made the news that we were colder than Mars. This makes everything a challenge — the cars have to be plugged in at night, wearing big mitts all the time definitely makes you appreciate the value of opposable thumbs, and driving anywhere takes twice as long because the streets are so icy and rutted. (The city has done a TERRIBLE job of clearing the streets this year, but that’s a whole other rant.)

So, the night before Christmas Eve, my hubs went out to plug my car in for me.  He couldn’t find my extension cord, so he used one that my daughter had bought in case her boyfriend needed to plug in. In the morning, I drove to work and when I was about 3/4 of the way there I suddenly realized my car had been plugged in and I didn’t unplug it. Eeep. When I got to work, I checked, but no extension cord was attached to the plug at the front of my car. On the upside, there, wrapped around one of the plug-in posts at work right where I park, was a blue extension cord — my lost extension cord! Apparently I drove away from work one day and left it there. Some kind person must have picked it up and put it there. As for the cord I’d just driven away with, I could only hope maybe it was still attached at home.

But no such luck. In my office I checked my phone and saw a text message from my husband saying, “You drove away with the extension cord.”

Shit. That meant the cord was lying on Portage Avenue somewhere between home and work. Oh well.

Note— in winter here, extension cords randomly littering the streets is a common sight. Like this:

Since it was my daughter’s cord I had to go buy one to replace it. I texted her to confess my sin and ask how long it was. She said it was 25 feet. Shit.

On Christmas Eve I did NOT want to go shopping, but I went to Home Depot which was happily not too busy and I bought her a new 25 foot extension cord.

Later, my whole family was killing themselves laughing at the image of me driving along,  oblivious to the 25 foot extension cord dragging along behind me. They asked, didn’t anyone honk or wave at me to point it out? I said no. Of course it was morning and I’d had no coffee. I might not have noticed. Now, it’s not unusual to see someone driving along with a forgotten extension cord dragging, or to see a cord lying on the road, especially at the beginning of winter before we all get used to this again. But a 25 foot one trailing along? Yeah, you don’t see that very often. I’m sure people were cracking up as they saw me.

Even worse, this was apparently the second time I’d done this so far this winter. But rest assured I will now be more aware of the extension cords and will NOT lose another one this year. I hope. Also it is warming up, so I don’t have to plug in. So there’s that.

Who else plugs in their car? Farther south, have you even heard of this?