My Christmas Adventure

It all started last Friday, which is the Friday a week before Christmas, which just so happened to also fall on a Friday (Anyone seeing a trend yet?). The weather people (Have to be politically correct) were predicting snow on Christmas Eve and my boss, being from Texas, had never had a white Christmas before and he began wishing for one. As the week went on the forecasts didn't change much and it looked like we were actually going to get some snow.

Fast forward to Christmas Eve Eve (December 23rd) when David Payne, our trusted local weatherma...weather person was explaining how different technologies were predicting anywhere from an inch of snow to 15 inches of snow. David took the median route and predicted about 3-7 inches of snow for Christmas Eve starting around mid-morning and running into early evening. Now of course I was paying close attention to the weather because I work for an undisclosed retailer in a (near) dead mall and I would be working from 8am-6:30pm on Christmas Eve.

Fast Forward to Christmas Eve Morning when I turn on the local weather at 7am and my buddy David Payne is still predicting 3-7 inches of snow. I'm feeling pretty confident on his prediction, but there is a slight amount of freezing drizzle. I hop in the shower and make my merry way to work with no delays at all.

Now because this storm has been hyped for a whole week and the fact that the day before we were about 10 times busier than we expected, we figured most people had got their shopping done early in anticipation of this storm and that the mall wouldn't be too busy. It seemed as though we were correct and at 9:30am we received a message from the mall saying that it was their intention to remain open until 6pm but would keep an eye on the weather and give us a further update in the afternoon. Shortly after this a customer had mentioned that it had started snowing, and like a little kid on a snow day, my manager became giddy and quickly rushed outside to see.

Not long after this we found out from a manager from another store that the storm had shifted and we were under a Blizzard Warning until 10pm and all the weather people were predicting 10+ inches of snow. Shit. Now I'm wanting out of here. I go to check out the snow and using my previous knowledge of snow storms, I decide that the mall should close shops at noon and send everyone home safe and sound. Well, noon goes by, no update from the mall.

Approximately 12:15pm, I receive a phone call from an old man at work saying that the DPS is telling people that if they want to be home for Christmas, leave the malls now! That old man was my father.

Approximately 12:30pm, my manager calls the mall offices to check on an update. Their response? The weather is not yet bad enough to close down. I want to ask if they have looked outside yet.

Approximately 12:45pm, my manager calls Papa Johns, in which we ordered pizza to be delivered at 1pm several days before, to see if they were still delivering. Yes they are. We ask if they would like us to cancel and in their greed for the green they desperately say, no, you are next on the list and someone will be their shortly.

Approximately 1pm, an employee from one of our sister stores comes in and explains to us of how he just helped 3 people get their cars unstuck from the parking lot and that they are starting to close their store and don't care what the mall says. He also informs us that our other sister store is closing at 1:30. Also one of our part-timers comes in and explains how it took her 30 minutes to drive 3 miles to the mall and got stuck once. She was driving a 4-wheel drive vehicle.

Approximately 1:15pm, the Papa Johns driver calls to tell us that he is stuck in the parking lot and asks us to meet him outside to get the pizzas. My manager goes out to meet him, comes back 5 minutes later empty handed, he could not find the Papa Johns car. I tell him that we should just close the store and try to get home safely. He wants to stay because there are still customers in the mall and our rival store is still open, but he grants me permission to leave. I don't have to be told twice. My manager says "Not to be mean, but I think you'll be back."

Approximately 1:30pm, I'm clocking out and have my coat, gloves, and beanie on when we receive a message from the mall granting the stores permission to close if they would like. I head out to my car, there is close to a foot of snow in some areas, winds of 45 mph, and cars stuck all across the parking lot. I scrape some ice off of my windshield, start the car and drive forward easily out of my parking spot. I'm feeling pretty good that I'll be home in 2 hours. There are quite a few areas in our parking lot that don't have more than an inch of snow and I remain on those. As I'm pulling up to the turn out of the parking lot a big gust of wind blows snow in front of my car so that I can't see anything, but I know I can't stop. I see the stop sign ahead, no cars are coming, I keep my foot slightly on the gas and begin to turn and...I'm stuck. Shit! I put the car in reverse and try to back out. No dice. I try rocking the car back and forth. Not going anywhere. The right tire is just spinning and there is nothing I can do.

Approximately 1:45pm, I get out of my car, lock it up, and decide to walk back to the store. I have maybe driven 100 yards from the mall, I turn around. I can't see the mall at all. So I begin walking back to where I think the mall should be with wind blowing snow 45 mph into my face. Not fun. I make it back to the entrance with a red face and icicles hanging from my nose. I come back to the store, fully prepared to spend the night, with my head hanging, and the look on my boss's face saying "I told you so". But the good news is that the Papa Johns driver came inside and we got our pizza. So I go clock back in, get some pizza and precede to tell my manager and 2 part-timers that we're probably going to have to spend the night.

By this time most of the other stores have closed and we're one of maybe 4 or 5 that are still open. We're eating pizza behind our store's registers while customers are looking around and we decide that if a customer needs something, they can come to us. I'm sorry, but we just did not care about customer service at this time. Our 2 part-timers decided that they would try to make it home, considering they both have 4 wheel drive. One of them, the one who got stuck on their way in, even offered to take us with her. I declined, afraid we'd make it halfway there and get stuck and then half to walk a mile and a half to her house or to the mall. 100 yards was bad enough to walk in this.

So it was now just me and my boss. We went out into the mall and threw a football for a bit, then decided to close the store and go out and check out the damage. We walked over to the doors and saw about 20 cars, including mine way off in the distance, stuck in snow drifts. What really downed our hopes was seeing the tow truck that was trying to get cars unstuck, was stuck himself. At this moment a cocky young couple decided they were going to leave the mall. We wished them luck and paid close attention to their efforts. The drove around for 10 minutes looking for a route, around abandoned cars and snow drifts, to exit the parking lot. Amused by the situation, we were trying, but failing, to hold back our laughter, and alas, they were stuck. Not wanting them to see us laughing come back and kick our asses, we swiftly turned around and headed back for the store.

Now for this next part, it is important for you to know a little bit about the layout of our store. We have 2 tv's at the front of our store that are connected to a dvd player in the stockroom of our store that is wired to our speaker system throughout the store. The reason for this is that every month we receive a dvd of music videos and promotional events to play in our store. Unfortunately for us, the coaxiel cable that connects the tv's to the dvd player is sliced clean in half right before it reaches the dvd player. Don't ask me how or why, it's been that way since we began working there. We had been speaking of getting a splice kit to try and repair but had never gotten around to it. So now we come to the realization that if we can get a splice kit and find a dvd or two, this night might not be that bad. Problem is there is no Radio Shack or anything to that liking in our mall. So as we're walking back to our store, I decide I will check the video game store on the rare chance that they may have a splice kit and some dvd's. No splice kit, but I begin talking to the 2 guys working there and they seem pretty cool and lucky for them, they can play video games all night if they get bored. Before I leave I tell them that we may head down there sometime that night if it's ok with them, and it was. So even though we have no way of watching a movie in our store, we may still be able to play some video games.

As I come around to corner back to our store, I see my boss sitting on the floor outside our store, with the gate still closed, looking as if he's about to cry. Turns out he got the gate unlocked, but can't get his key out of the lock. Both of us fumble around with it for 20 minutes and finally get his key out, but now the gate is locked again. So we hope that maybe it's just his key that's messed up, so we put my key in to see if we can unlock it again. 5 minutes later, that gate is unlocked, but my key is stuck. But after 5 more minutes of messing with it, it comes free and the store is unlocked. YAY!

Approximately 4pm, a family comes into our store. In talking to them I find out that they had just driven up to the mall. They decided that at 4 o'clock, in the middle of a blizzard, they needed to come to the mall and do some shopping. IDIOTS! Then they spent $430 on merchandise. RICH IDIOTS! But that made the day almost worth it.

They leave the store and it's just the 2 of us again. We decide that we want to try to close the gate and do some exploring. So he goes out the gate and I lock it from the inside and go out the back door. The only problem with the back door is that it opens up from the inside only, so we had to find something to prop it open with, which I did. He came around back and we decided to go up to the north end of the parking lot and see the damage up there. This is what we saw.

And...

So after standing outside and marveling for about 10 minutes, we decided it was much too cold and went back inside. It's now around 5pm and we are inside of our store, with the gate closed because we were afraid that if we open (assuming we could open it) we might not be able to lock it again. So we're sitting on the back counter and the phone rings every few minutes with people asking us if we're open or how late we're open til. Yes, at 5 o'clock people are still considering coming out in this mess. I have also failed to mention that by this time DPS is telling people not to leave their homes, all the highways are closed, and there is a 50 car pile up on I-40. Would you want to go out in that kind of a mess? I sure hope not. So like I said, we're just sitting there. We decide to try on some shoes that we haven't had a chance to try on before, then we get bored with that and we're trying to figure out what to do next.

Now I don't recall how it came up, but my manager mentions how before he got his apartment when he moved here, he spent 2 1/2 weeks living in the Ramada Inn next door. LIGHT BULB! Both of us had the same idea at the same time and as I reach for the phone book, he hands me the phone. I call the Ramada. Yes, the rates are the same. I quickly ask if they have any rooms left and to my surprise, they have plenty of rooms left. We realize that it may not be long before the other people trapped in the mall think of this so we rapidly close down the registers, grab our stuff and head out the back door.

Remember when I told you how terrible it was to walk 100 yards back to the mall in this? Well the Ramada is about 300 yards away. So we trek across the frozen tundra which was once our parking lot trying not to get knocked over by the wind. As we approach the hotel, we see that next door is a sports bar, AND IT'S OPEN. Two things pop into my head:

1. Isn't alcohol supposed to warm you up?

2. After everything we've been through today, we are most certainly deserving of a beer...or 8.

But in our haste we decide that we should stick with the plan and get a hotel room first, while they're still available, then we'll go back to the sports bar. But once we get into our nice warm room with comfy beds and a tv, we decide that the beer isn't that important and we each went to the lobby and got a soda and some snacks instead.

Through our window we had a perfect view of the hotel parking lot, and during commercials of the Hawaii Bowl and A Christmas Story we would look out the window and watch the 2 morons who were trying to LEAVE the hotel, try to get unstuck. I guess I should mention that these two vehicles were a Chevy Suburban and a Toyota Tundra and neither of them were able to get out of the hotel parking lot through the standard entrance/exit, but apparently found another way out.

Approximately 10:45pm, we're looking out the window and see a little Pontiac Grand Prix coming up the street and begin to turn into the parking lot, but when he realizes that the snow is somewhere between 1-2 feet high at that point, he thinks better of it and backs out. Yet he continues to back up down the street, and puzzled, the two of us watch. Then he does it. He speeds up to take a run at it, turns into the parking lot, plows into the snow and...he's stuck. If a Suburban and a Tundra couldn't make it through there, no way a Grand Prix is. So we laughed went back to watching tv.

Approximately 11:30pm, bed time.

8am sharp, alarm goes off, it's Christmas morning and we're ready to start the day, but not without first getting our free hot breakfast. So we eat, go back to our room and get our stuff. Look out the window, the Grand Prix is still there. We chuckle and proceed to check out. We walk back over the the mall and manage to get my boss's car unstuck, but not mine. So we plan to go to his apartment, where his parents are waiting, and have my dad pick me up.

For the most part the streets are easy going if you have front or 4 wheel drive, but there are abandoned cars on the side of the road everywhere. So our plan is to go down 59th street to Western and take Western up to Reno which is around where he lives. We get down 59th just fine, turn on to Western and we're making it just fine. Then, just as we make it past 44th street, we hit an ice patch and before we know it, the car is spinning. Now we're stuck in the median. A car passes by us and the passengers just stare at us. I get out to push and a nice Hispanic (have to be politically correct, but I believe he was from Mexico) man who did not speak much English, got out of his car and helped us push. We were moving again, but heading South instead of North. We found a parking lot to turn around and we were back on our way.

Now there is a river that runs just south of downtown where my boss lives and only a few roads have bridges to go over them, and Western is one of them, but we get up to the bridge and it is closed due to construction. So we turn around and head east to Walker, which I believe has a bridge to go over the river. Phew! I was right, but we get a little further north and there is a cop blocking off the tunnel ahead, apparently the way is blocked by a bunch of wrecked cars. So now we have to find another road that is open going north. There is a street heading east that we think about going down, but a car ahead of us goes that way and gets stuck. So we turn and head west again, but all the streets that way are closed going north and we come to a dead end. So we go back to the cop and ask him which way we can go and he gives us the right route. And alas, we're downtown. We have now been driving for 2 and a half hours and are about 8 miles north of the mall we work at when we finally meet my dad, and I am able to go home and spend Christmas with my family.

It was a Christmas I will never forget, but never want to experience again. A lot of people expected me to be angry over the situation, but I just could not be. In fact, I found it all rather amusing and I had good company the whole way through. So thanks boss, for an unforgettable Christmas, where the best present of all, was just getting home.