I know quite a few people in advertising who, quite often, like to put little packets of white powder into their nose.
Snowblindedness in this industry is always a “which came first” question: Is it the industry driven pressure or did the predisposed come ready to snort?
I myself had a snowblind experience this weekend and I can tell you this: it was a real bad fucking trip. Leaving to go home from my friend’s northern-ish cottage on Sunday, the weather didn’t look good and the forecast sited squalls and road closures in the area. So my entourage decided that this would be a splendid time to set out. With my car heading a two-car convoy, we decided to brave it (stupid it), passing a couple of very straight, poorly art directed, not so clever ads in the form of “highway closed” signs. Everything was swell until a massive squall moved in and I could see NOTHING. Without exaggeration my windows may have well been painted solid white. (And apparently if you’re caught in a squall, there’s a school of thought that says you shouldn’t stop dead.)
So that’s exactly what I did.
I figured that if had no evidence that I was driving on a road, nor would I know whether I was driving head-on into traffic. So I stopped. I had forewarned the person following me that this is precisely what I would do if I could no longer see. Unfortunately, I hadn’t mentioned this to the dude in the pick-up who rammed into the back of my friend’s car who, in turn, gave mine a peck on the ass. But this isn’t the worst part. By far. Now all three of us, we dum-dums three, are locked in a mortal static freeze in the middle of a road with zero visibility.
Yay.
Everyone just sat there for a few minutes in shock and waited for what we surely thought was the next hammer drop: The truck on the other side who goes into the squall but doesn’t stop until they’ve slammed us sitting ducks clean into the snowbank. But after checking to see if everyone was OK while trying to swallow my panic at our sheer vulnerability at this point, we managed to cobble together a plan that brought an ambulance to the scene in about 15 minutes. And after the ambulance got stuck in the snow and had to call an ambulance, we made it to the hospital unscathed. No one was hurt.
Everyone we spoke to (emerg staff, cops, misc. old coots) thought it prudent to mention that we were lucky to be alive. Gee, thanks! I think the frozen pee in my pants already mentioned that.
Worst. Trip. Ever. I’m totally off that shit.
Filed under: Uncategorized , advertising, snow blind
