What? "Freezing Rain"?

Last night I came out of the movie theater at 11:30 p.m. after watching "The Hobbit".  I was dead tired and anticipating a cold walk to the car.  Then I noticed it was raining too.  I had read a text from Nicole, after the movie was over, that warned of "freezing rain" conditions.  "I'm not afraid of cold rain," I thought, "Rain is always cold."  I reached my car and saw that it was encased under a glaze of ice.  It was like a cocoon from a science fiction movie.  I tried to put my key in the door but it was covered in ice.  I had to mash the key into the lock through the ice, I bet that's not the recommended method.  I was able to unlock the door, but the door was glued shut under the ice.  The door handle was covered in ice.  This ice rain was still falling out of the sky and the weather was otherwise cold and windy.

This was an amazing pickle.  I kicked at the door to try to break the ice and then I stabbed at the ice on the handle with my car key, then I kicked at the door some more.  At last I got the door handle to start moving up and down.  However I was afraid to try to pull the door open because it was still frozen shut and I was afraid that the door handle would break off in my hand.  So I kicked at the ice on the door some more, it cracked and I got the door open.  I got inside the car and turned on the defroster.

I phoned Nicole and said, "Ah ha, so this is what happens when the rain freezes?"  She suspected that the roads might be too icy for me to drive on and, if so, suggested that I spend the night in a nearby hotel. I told her I'd try to get the windshield defrosted and then determine how dangerous the roads were.  Outside people were hacking at the ice on their windshields with ice scraping tools.  I knew that I didn't have anything like that in my trunk, I'm lucky to be smart enough to have jumper cables.

I know that salt melts ice.  I've seen bags of ice for sale at Walmart - you pour it on your driveway and it turns the driveway ice to slush which then runs off into the gutter.  I didn't have any salt with me, but I did have a little bottle of contact lens saline solution.  That gave me a feeling of sudden relief - as soon as I hit the thick windshield ice with this stuff it was gonna cut through like a hot knife in butter.  I pulled off the plastic nozzle, opened the door to lean outside and poured the stuff all over the windshield.  The solution froze almost immediately, adding another layer of ice to what was there.  I got back inside the car.

The defroster was going full blast for about forty minutes.  I couldn't see through the ice on the windshield but I could see water trickling between the ice and the glass.  Eventually I got impatient and got a CD out of the glove compartment, broke the case and went outside to scrape the windshield with it.  I left the door open so that it didn't freeze shut again with the engine running. 

With hard work and determination I got enough ice off the windshield so that I could see.  I slowly started driving out of the parking lot, expecting to spin out every other moment.  The roads were thoroughly salted - Thank God someone knew what they were doing - and driving home was no problem. 

Today Nicole and I went to Walmart and bought an ice scraper for me and some de-icer to put in my windshield wiper fluid.  I like Illinois.  It is wacky here.