Crud

Been noticing that since that hellacious snowstorm over a week ago, the snow and ice on the roads and streets have been slushy enough to kick up onto my car behind my tires.  I have usually taken the time to get my ice scraper and remove the snow from my car, even so far as to open the doors to get the snow that's wedged inbetween and underneath them.  This year, with the winter being so cold for so long, I've said, Ah, fuck it.

But my (for lack of a better term, even though it conjures up images of My Fucking Father yelling at me) laziness has not been a good idea since this snowstorm.  Not being diligent in doing that has meant that there is a lot of build-up on the backs of the tire wells.  So big, in fact, that the snow damn well near touches the pavement and builds up almost to the back of the front tires, the ones that push my car (which has front-wheel drive).  Recently saw a report saying that if you don't scrape the snow off, or at least kick a little bit of it off with your foot, the build-up could prevent your tires from turning as much as they should, which is a scary thought, especially since it's one I haven't thought of before.

But you should have seen my parents' minivan.  A few days ago I noticed that there was a lot of build-up of snow crud/gunk on their front passenger-side wheel well.  I mean, it was not just behind but in front of and on top of it -- all around.  I tried scraping it off, but as you may know, if you just leave that crud gunk on the car and let the slushiness harden in the cold temperatures and after the car cools down, well, it's going to stick.  And since there was this huge hunk of gunk around that well, I finally was able to dislodge it from adhering to the car ... but what I got was this chunk of ice too big to let it drop from the well or to pull it out.  It was so big that I was able to move it to and fro inside the wheel well, but not take it out.  It was just stuck there.  So I left it sitting on the tire.  Weird stuff.  Weird winter.