This week for our Story Dam prompt we were asked to write about “The Dead of Winter”. This is what I came up with:
Damn Army!
“I know I’ve said this a bazillion times but, IT’S FREEZING!” Dawn said through chattering teeth.
Phil shook his head. She had been complaining about the temperatures ever since they moved there in June. “Honey, I told you it was going to be colder than what you thought; you said you could handle it.”
Teeth still chattering, “I lied” as she wrapped her scarf around her head one more time. ‘Besides, when we first got here the only snow was on top of the mountains, not on my head!”
“Drama queen, you’re not even outside yet” he laughed at her.
“It’s knowing how cold it is” she replied shivering.
It was everywhere, covering every inch of anything it touched. Some things were barely recognizable to what they actually were. The air was so thick with it she could barely see. Simple everyday tasks were now becoming more time consuming due to all the layers of clothing involved. Today for example she was wearing: two t-shirts under her sweater, three pairs of socks, and itchy thermal underwear underneath her pants.
She really wanted to like it. As a child she played in the snow every winter. But not even that had prepared her for the amount she had been dealing with since late August. Since most of the snow she remembered from back then had quickly melted after a week or two.
She stood at the door and braced herself for the sudden gust of wind she knew was about to hit her, a few times it had taken her by surprise so she learned to get prepared and psych herself out. Sometimes it helped, but most of the time it was a waste of time.
Quickly closing the door behind her, she looked for the trail Phil had shoveled an hour before. Had he not been indoors warming up from that, he’d have been the one coming out to do this.
The trail was still somewhat visible but was quickly filling up with snow making it hard to tell where she was actually walking. “Please don’t let me fall today” The week before she had made the same trip and fell on her way back taking almost 30 minutes to get back on her feet since she laid there for a good 20 minutes laughing before Phil looked out the window and came to get her. (The other 10 was spent laughing at Phil, he had thrown her pink scarf around his head on the way out the door) Today she wasn’t in the mood to laugh in the snow; she was tired of it, and wishing they had gotten orders for Hawaii instead. “Damn Army” she thought.
Looking towards the end of the trail she saw her destination: the mailbox. Her sister had sent a package that was scheduled to arrive today or she wouldn’t have even bothered. When she saw the lights from the postal truck after Phil had snuggled in by the fire, she told him she’d go check the box. “Damn my stupid sister, how dare she send me a box, doesn’t she know checking the mail here is life threatening?”
Ten minutes later as she joined Phil in front of the fire.
‘What was in your package?”
“Don’t ask”
“It was frozen shut again, huh?” Phil replied with a giggle.
Gawwwwd!! Damn Army indeed. That’s hilarious and awful at the same time. AND how horrible that her picture might have been there for all she knew but the mail couldn’t even be delivered, let alone collected.
Good thing she didn’t get hypothermia laughing on her back fo 20 minutes!
Thanks for stopping by Jessie 🙂
That is hilarious. My FIL is retired AF and was stationed for a while in Iceland. He would tell stories about how suddenly the weather could change. I’ll stay in Florida thankyouverymuch
Tara, as much as I would love to stay somewhere that it’s warmer most of the time, our dream duty station is Germany! But I would rather be in the snow in Germany than somewhere that snows 9 months out of the year 😉
My Grampa is retired AF and was in Greenland for awhile, he said he didn’t see very much GREEN while there 😉
Awww…I want to know where they were living and what was in the package! Great job at expressing her feelings about the snow, I really felt for her!
Lisa, I kept picturing Alaska, since I have this feeling that’s where we’ll end up if we don’t get Germany for our next duty assignment. I’ll gladly take the snow in Germany over Alaska 😉
and…I’d like to know what was in that package, too…LOL!
Hi Brandi – love your story – could feel the cold seeping onto my bones – even though here in Oz it is summer. Memories of my earlier life – no, not a reincarnated one – should have said earlier in my life when I lived in UK I can remember have to hold a lighter to the car door to defrost it so that I could get into the car – after, of course I had taken the blanket keeping the engine warm from under the bonnet..
Many thanks for this.
Magi, Thanks so much for stopping by. A lighter to the car door?….hmm, I’ll have to remember that if we do get stationed somewhere that snows a lot 😉 We’ve been told to plan on buying a heater for our engines if we get stationed in Alaska so they don’t freeze over night. BUT, I have a feeling if we are somewhere that gets that cold, I won’t care if my car starts or not because I’m not going anywhere! LOL!!
Too bad we can’t get stationed in Australia, I have a feeling you would be a ‘hoot’ to spend time with 😉