A last-minute winter road trip

Jan 02, 2010

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Christopher, 18, was set to fly to Ohio last Sunday to visit a friend. This was two days after Christmas and, as you may know, this was also two days after some jackass attempted to blow up a Detroit-bound airplane that departed from the Netherlands.

I am still incredulous that anyone would be able to get on the plane holding anything. I fly rather frequently, and it has become a regimented parade of humiliation to even get close to a boarding gate. Two plastic bins are unceremoniously plunked before you on a conveyer belt. With inches of space between you and your fellow humiliatees, you disgorge the contents of your purse or knapsack, spread-eagle your laptop, remove your shoes, your belt, your watch and your nipple rings. I don't possess several of the items on that list.

Nothing makes you get to know your fellow passengers like shuffling around in your stocking feet with pants around your ankles.

I had warned Christopher to be prepared. I'd told him to can the sarcasm, look as non-threatening as a 6-foot-3 manboy could, and he would be fine. I had him ready; they cancelled his flight five minutes before we were to head out the door and rescheduled it for the next morning. This made me pause. He'd already packed his toothbrush.

That night the second flight was cancelled. Security was eating flights and grounding passengers all over.

"Set your alarm, we're leaving at 6 a.m.," I told him.

"You're driving me to Ohio?" he asked.

"In the time you'll sit around an airport calling me to come get you, I can have you there."

We drove. Mapquest said it would take four hours, 45 minutes to get to his friend's house, where he planned to spend the week. I calculated that as four hours, my time. At 6 a.m., I stuffed the sleeping manboy into the van and we headed out onto the black QEW toward Niagara. Gentle snow soon started.

"I need a coffee," I growled.

"Oh? I hadn't planned on stopping," replied Christopher.

He hadn't planned on stopping? We were heading out with three pieces of gum and half a frozen water bottle. I'd eaten the chocolate in the emergency kit ages ago.

"Check my iPhone for weather. Punch in `Buffalo,' then `Erie, Pa.,'" I said.

"Hang on ... yeah, light snow here. More toward Erie ... but it's totally fine," he finished.

We were just past Buffalo when we saw the first car facing the wrong way on the median, front fender demolished. The snow came faster.

"It's just a dusting," said Christopher, peering into the zero visibility of the two-lane Interstate 90. I sighed. We'd breezed through customs (there must be something non-threatening about a boy stuck with his mother in a minivan), but "just a dusting" was going to change the equation.

Traffic was light, but we still saw many, many cars without headlights on. Coincidentally or not, many, many of them had GPS units mounted front and centre, compromising the driver's field of vision. Yes, laws are all over the books regarding this, but if a moving screen is in your field of vision, especially if you're mucking with it like the idiot in the Toyota 4Runner, you're going to end up in a ditch.

"Another idiot with no lights on," commented His Mother's Boy, as I kept cursing Air Canada under my breath.

"Yeah, and busy tinkering with his GPS. He may know where he's going, but nobody is going to see him coming," I snarked.

As we emerged through the snow, we saw a semi jackknifed into the ditch. "Just a dusting" had been through here earlier.

Airfare saved: $485.00. Gas required: $85.00. Time with my kid? Priceless.

Lorraine Sommerfeld's column appears Saturdays in Wheels and Mondays in the Star's Living section.

www.lorraineonline.ca

Toronto Star