"Rule number one. Cardio."

Today half the school almost died in what may be the worst of the snow storms to hit us yet. Never fear mothers and those who care about things like safety, I am the best driver ever and I know everything about cars. (If thats not reasuring I don't know what is)

It was raining until about 11:00 Sunday night and it was a rain that I am not really used to. The whole earth seemed to be in a cloud and it wasn't falling rain, it was just get-you-wet-somehow rain. At the stroke of 11:00 the ice fairy turned everything into ice. Then it snowed on top of that until the morning. I was unaware of the ice fairy and proceeded like every Monday by first turning off my five alarms one at a time, sitting on the side of my bed for about ten minutes, brushing my teeth, putting on my boots, ect. I was making my lunch for the day when I heard my roommate's alarm go off. (He doesn't have a car so I drive him) I use his alarm as a signal to go start up the truck and let it get nice and toasty. I went outside and the whole place was white. "Dang!" I said to myself, "We've got to get moving!"

Just a note: If you don't know, attendance is the number one thing at my school. You can be the dumbest box of rocks but if you show up everyday, you can pass. It's a big deal to get there on time.

Back to my truck. It had been turned into an ice box. A solid layer of icy snow. It was about 5:45 and the sun wasn't out yet so I had to actually pry my door open and then break all the ice and snow off just to be able to see. I don't have any kind of scraper so I had to use a gift card and a Thrive Youth Frisbee of all things to get the ice off. This is a lot for a Florida boy. My roommate just kind of stared and looked cold while I was on my mission to not be late.

The next hardest thing was actually trying to drive in this stuff. I think it hit the city by surprise because the roads where not salted and nothing was plowed. That meant that everyone was doing about 25 on the freeway. Left and right cars where in ditches. No lines on the road, just me, my 4x4, and my sleeping roommate. We where making good time but I felt like the scene in the Truman show when he is trying to leave the island and all the crazy stuff is there waring him to go no further. I even saw a abandon Blazer upside down in a ditch of all things. Even still we kept on truckin', or, snoring in my roommate's case.

I made it to the end of the last highway and was feeling pretty good about everything. We still had 15 minutes to get there and there was only one more short road to go. But I had underestimated the short road. This road has several steep hills and I found out the hills and ice are a bad combo. Not like Ritz and Peanut butter, which is a good combo.

All the poor people in frount wheel drive cars could only get about half way up this one hill and then there tires would spin to much and they would slide back down. Down into the other cars trying to get up the hill behind them. It was turning into a real mess and we where still stuck on the off ramp. Lots of traffic was starting to pile up because about 250 collage kids all come through this one road at the same time in the morning. As one particular little cavalier was taking a try at the hill, myself, a full size Ford, and a Jeep all seemed to realize that we where going to be late if we didn't move. The Jeep was the first to go and we all followed, around the little cavalier, around the wrecks on the other side of the hill, and over a few curbs. I felt bad leaving everyone stuck there and rudely butting in line but hey, we where going to be late.

We then pulled into the school and my roommate awoke somehow at just the right time, like he does everyday, and got out next to his building. I parked the truck and was feeling good about getting there and still having five minutes to walk to class but I forgot to factor in one last thing. It is also hard to walk on ice. I normally have about a five minute walk to the class but with the sidewalks so slick, I was falling everywhere! I then resolved to using my Lil' 500 hundred skills to run and slide all the way into the building. I showed up on the third floor, right on time, out of breath, when I noticed...

No one else had made it.

Slowly about half the class came to school but the teacher never did, we ended up being told to come back at nine when they could get a substitute. I was very disappointed but I knew that, I, Tyler, The Floridan, had made it to school on time.