Disclaimer the Second: Actually, I might call him Cornbread. Because cornbread is awesome, and he absolutely would not get teased on the playground. At all.
Everybody's gone in the cotton and the corn / Didn't leave nobody but the baby.
Disclaimer the Third: Someone remind me to post my family’s super-easy-and-delicious Indian Corn Pudding recipe sometime. And could someone else remind me of the meaning of the word disclaimer? I seem to have forgotten.
Car Adventure # 1, Or Brushes with the Law, or Don’t Giggle at Mister Policeman Hannah Really Just Don’t Okay?
I believe I mentioned to you a certain long car trip that involved exhilaration, friendship, and peanut butter. Well, after almost eight hours of driving, at around 1am, with merely twenty minutes to go to our destination… it also involved flashing blue lights and a me caught between sympathy for my friend and the novelty of watching said friend try to weasel out of a speeding ticket.
See, in Australia, when you speed, you get a fine in the mail. The police wait in tinted vans on the side of the road, and many a time you never knew what hit you (so to speak). So for me being pulled over to the side of the road, approached by a cop, and having the chance to avoid a fine through the power of words alone counts as a “cultural experience”.
The Criminal Masterminds. Fear Us.
Luckily for us, our cop was a really nice guy, and L.MiteMaster was able to explain that we’d been driving for a really long time, were close to our destination, and were genuinely unaware of and sorry for going slightly over the speed limit.
And I restrained myself from giggling and asking the policeman if he could maybe put the siren on for a wee second, and maybe glower and swagger just a little bit, because this was such a novelty and wowee it’s like I’m in a movie.
I’m glad I talked myself out of requesting such behaviour, for in the end the policeman reduced the fine. Thank you Mr. Virginia Cop.
Car Adventure # 2, Or Oh My So This is What A Snowstorm is Like, Or A Pictorial Depiction of A Morning of Pure Terror.
Saturday: the snowstorm begins, and my little Australian head is confused.
Sunday: Pre-attempting to extricate M.HeartsofPalm's car.
Getting this car out from its snow enclosure constituted one of the scariest experiences of my life. You can’t really tell in the photo, but we were parked on a slope, and after half an hour of clearing the snow from atop and beneath the car, the car still slipped backwards every time we tried to drive forwards. It seemed like we would never surmount the snow, no matter how hard we revved. Instead, we looked likely to slip backwards into the car parked behind us. What fun!
In actual fact I was not inside the car at this point, but was standing outside so as to give extricating advice. M.HeartsofPalm asserts, however, that while I apparently started off with a calm face and legitimate advice, by the end I was panic-stricken and shrieking “I don’t know! I don’t know! Don’t crash! Don’t crash!”
I cannot convey how emotional M.HeartsofPalm’s and my shouts were when she made one final, desperate push at the accelerator and the car spurted forwards onto the cleared road.
But I can tell you that the sugary coffees I treated us to afterwards were well-deserved – and were absolutely and utterly decaf.
The calming of the nerves. Hey look! Snow!
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Dude, that should terrifying! Good job not bursting into tears!
You had me at peanut butter. That sounds like an exciting adventure. Coming from a place that gets vurrry snowy, I can’t help but giggle at your predicament
LOL at cornbread! reminds me of Seinfeld and George calling his kid Soda or Seven
I guess I never really thought about the fact that we just silently get a fine in the mail. None of this tv cop stopping you and asking to see “License and registration ma’am” stuff! Good to hear that it was reduced in the end 
oh that cornbread looks great!
S-J: I honestly think it was only the knowledge of future Starbucks and Toys-R-Us-Scrabble-purchasing that prevented my friend and me from running back to her apartment and, indeed, crying into pints of ice-cream.
Theresa: I don’t know how people cope with this predicament on a regular basis! I’ve been secretly harbouring a desire to live in Boston/New York/DC/Chicago, but I don’t know if I could do it. Might have to focus on my Austin love
Oh, except for the whole non-green-card-impossible-visa issue.
Lorraine: I don’t know which is worse – seeing the flashing lights behind, or the strike of fear one gets everytime there’s a Department of Registration yada yada letter in the mailbox, even when it turns out to be innocuous!
Simply Life: It was so good! Though a little too sweet to work with the chili I intended to eat it with. But that was fine, it just seemed like having dinner and dessert in one!
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