white out conditions

When I was much younger, we had to move during a blizzard. My family was being evicted from the apartment that we lived in after my mother had complained one too many times about the size of the rats which were living in our walls and playing tag in our bedrooms in the middle of the night.

How very romantic and pseudo-Victorian, the destitute family moving in a snow storm because of a heartless slumlord and a rat infestation. feh.

There was a state wide emergency status placed and no cars were allowed on the roads, due to possible danger. But, what do you do when you're served an eviction notice? My mother packed all of us into her hand me down Cadillac and we took back and forth trips.

At one point, we were pulled over by a state trooper. I remember leaning on the back dash of the car and peering out the window, trying desparately to make out some sort of shapes through the blinding white all around us and the redblueredblue of the police car.

You're all going to freeze to death, you know. said the voice in my head. I had been living with this off and on for about the past year, at that point. They're going to arrest your mother and leave you here and you're going to freeze. Like that man in the Shining. Only you won't have an axe.

I ignored the voice, even at that age knowing it probably wasn't good to pay heed to it. Slid back down into my seat and asked my brother if it hurt to turn blue and shiver to death.