Frozen

We had an ice storm yesterday. Some of my coworkers left early. One of them said, "Ducky, you can go home if you're worried about the roads."

"Nah," I said. "I have prayer room hours this evening, so it's pointless to leave. Besides, I'm from Minnesota." Minnesotans call our state "the land of ice and snow"; we know how to drive in winter conditions. I figured I would be fine. So the rain sleeted down and hardened into ice with my full permission. I didn't give it a second thought.

Last night during debriefing with my team, Jonathan Combrink came in. "Ladies, please give me your car keys so I can start your cars and scrape the ice off your windows," he said. We were all surprised but very grateful. After the ice storm, it was like negative 40 degrees outside, and our cars were probably caked with ice.

After we finished debriefing (late as usual, around 11:00 p.m.), I went to find my car. Jono was working on it with about four other guys. The car was coated with ice. "We can't get it open," he told me. They couldn't even get the key to turn in the lock. The only advice he could give me was to try pouring water over it and to get some de-icer. I didn't have de-icer (and even if I did, it would have been inside the car, which wouldn't have been helpful.) I poured hot water over the door and the lock, but that didn't help. I kicked the door, but that didn't help anything aside from my frustration levels.

It was about 11:30 by that point. I went into the prayer room to warm up and spotted a friend. We scraped her car, and then she took me to Wal-Mart to get de-icer. I used up half a can on my doors, carefully spraying everywhere I saw ice. I stuck the tip of a key in the lock and sprayed de-icer inside. I yanked on the doors, hip-checked them, pounded on them. After a while I realized I couldn't feel my toes any more. My car still showed no signs of opening. It was hopeless. Frustrated and rather frozen, I went into the prayer room to warm up.

By this point it was 12:30 a.m. or later. My friend couldn't help me any more, since she had briefing and Sacred Trust hours. I was thinking about spending the night on the floor in my office when I spotted Heston. He knows a lot about cars and stuff. Plus he is a gentleman at heart; if he couldn't fix my car, he'd drive me home.

Heston took a look at my car and pulled on the handles a bit. "I did that," I said. "I also poured hot water over it."

"Hot water?" he said. "You need cold water."

I handed him my water bottle. He doused my lock, turned the key, and opened the door with no apparent effort.

It was that easy.

After I got done feeling stupid, I thanked my hero effusively. I finished scraping my windows, loaned my de-icer to another girl whose locks were frozen shut, and drove home carefully, shivering in the cold. I arrived home around 1:30 a.m. and was quite grateful for my electric blanket.

Needless to say, I came into work late this morning. And I have learned my lesson: don't laugh at ice storms just because I'm from Minnesota, and never use hot water on a frozen lock.

Update

After I got home, I shoveled the driveway a little bit. When I tried to grab my scraper/brush to brush off the cars, I discovered that my car locks had frozen shut again. My "adopted dad" opened the door by holding a lighter to the lock. He says never to use cold water, either, because it will just freeze again. I'm leaving my car unlocked tonight. Stupid ice. So, new lesson leaned: don't use water on frozen locks, and leave your car unlocked during ice storms.