This afternoon, I said two things that later made me laugh. Not the smiling, roaring laugh I usually do, but more of a sneer accompanied by a choppy exhale.

The first was: "I feel like winter is over."

The second was: "I've ridden the bus a few times lately. I wish I could ride it to work every day."

An hour later it started raining. In January. In Minnesota. Shortly after that, the entire world seemed like a frozen-over hell. I tried walking out to my car where I'd forgotten my phone, and almost fell four times in the process. Letter carriers were coming in rubbing their temples and muttering profanities. I started wondering if the bad weather would let up before it was time for me to go home.

Nope. Not at all.

The thing is, the block I live on is very hard to access when the weather is the least bit inclement. Sure, you can get near it, but there's nowhere to park down there. Whenever there's a blizzard, I usually end up stowing my car in a ramp about a mile away and walking home. In the ice, however? I seriously did not want to walk up the hill when it was covered with a quarter-inch sheet of ice. For that matter, I didn't want to drive on the ice, either. And I seriously didn't want to have a knuckle-whitening ride that ended with me ditching my car somewhere a mile away and scrambling the rest of the way home, only to reverse the process in worse conditions tomorrow.

So I called a cab.

I asked them if they could pick me up at the post office, and the dispatcher said, "Well...they could try..." I asked if the gas station a block away would be better, and she said it definitely would.

"OK," I said. "I'll walk to the gas station and meet the cab there."

"You have to be very, very, careful," the dispatcher said. "Seriously. OK? The sidewalks are terribly dangerous. Be careful." I told her that I'd be careful. I was. And I had to be.

When the driver picked me up, he said that a lot of other drivers had gone home and that some of the other cab companies had pulled all of their cabs off the road. "I don't stop driving until they make me," he said. He got me within a block and a half of my house, and I tipped him well. "Why don't you live closer to where you work?" he asked. I shrugged.

Now tomorrow I have to take the bus to work, which I wouldn't mind at all under ideal conditions. Like maybe if it would get me there anywhere near my start time.

Oh, well. I'm lucky to be alive.