Hello, everyone. It's October 31st, and you know what that means: tomorrow starts the studded snow tire season here in still-recovering-from-the-last-ice-age Finland. Today it's still, by law, technically too early to drive on them. Well, tell that to the snow demons! We got a good three-inch snowfall today. Nothing like a premature snowstorm to strike sweet savory fear in the hearts of motorists -- just in time for Halloween! WõõõÕÕÕõõõ_õõõ my ticker be racin'!


Ah, to be six years old, praying for a snowfall too deep for school buses, but just right for tobogganing. It's one of those funny little paradoxes, how little kids and those who drive to work both implore the same forces of nature to have mercy, but mean opposite things.

So me, today, at work, I'm looking out at the white stuff blowing down and, somewhere inside, I'm praying. Not to the snow demons -- they're clearly past appeasement -- but to whoever watches out for me personally: Please, let me get home safe. And, goldurnit, the resident six-year-old boy (who I love to bits) is singing an improv all about cars crashing, ambulances rushing in, and trucks running the ambulances off the road. A bit much for a guy wanting to stay calm and positive! The song itself wasn't bad -- quite clever, in fact. He had me in stitches. But I did ask him to cut it out.

A very dark six P.M. rolls around and I set out on the road. Very carefully. With utmost caution. Constantly watching my speed. On summer tires, with the slipperiest conditions of the year, there's no room for mistakes. Eighty kilometres an hour on the freeway and my knuckles are white, okay? No music on, not a chance. No distractions. Just total focus.

I take the exit ramp for home. Pass all three sets of traffic lights. I'm almost there, just a few more turns. . . first one approaches, a right-of-way left. . . I slow down, way down, feels like almost walking speed. . . not slow enough. I lose traction, I'm sliding, sliding, sliding. . . and, ever so gently, the right front wheel settles into the ditch. Stuck. I'm stuck, what do I do? Call a tow truck? Expensive, embarrassing -- ugh. Try backing out. Nope, no good. Sit there kinda lost for a bit. . . All of a sudden, there's an angel comes up beside me.

"Want a little help?" she asks. God, she's the most beautiful person in the world right now.

"Yeah," I say, cracking the door open. "I guess I drove into the ditch. . ." (!)

"Your other back wheel's in the air," she observes. I step out to look and, sure enough, it is.

I go around to the front to assess things from that angle. Hmm, 's in the ditch, all right. Gosh. This whole time I'm explaining how it happened -- just babbling, it's totally irrelevant to the situation, but it's the shock, it makes you stupid.

"Let's try to push it out together," she says, as three more angels appear to join her. One of them, a strong-looking male, gets down into the ditch, plants his hands on the bumper, and tells me to get in and drive. The rest take up positions, and in no time at all I'm good to go, four wheels on the road.

I can't believe it. I crack open the door again. The divine rescuers are already walking away up the road ahead to their own car.

"Thank you so much," I call out. I'm so overcome with gratitude, I could hug and kiss them all.

"Yup," says one of them, barely glancing back. And just like that, they're off to wherever they were going, taillights beaming back pure benevolence as I slowly follow their car on my own way home. By the time my route parts from theirs, the lights are too far ahead to see.

Now, sitting here typing after a nice dinner of soup with blueberry pie for dessert, and a long, hot, refreshing sauna, I reflect on all that I might learn from this amazing, mundane incident.

This much I have to say: the universe has got one heck of a sense of humour.

LOL.

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