The bitter, frigid air stung my cheeks, quickly flushing them rosy red, as I emerged from the toasty warmth of my house. I carefully stepped down onto my partly frozen cement porch, trying to avoid falling flat on my back. I sighed with relief as made it safely down the three stairs of my porch and hesitated before stepping on to the sidewalk. It didn’t look frozen as my porch did, so I decided it was safe enough to pick up the pace. The looks of the sidewalk were deceiving, however, as the ice was invisible and just as slick as my porch had been. My quick, careless pace allowed the soles of my traction-less tennis-shoes to lose their grip on the ground and shot out from under me, flinging my arms in the air as I plummeted backwards. My fingers loosened, releasing my bags to fly through the air as the rainbow of clothes poured out. I landed hard with a thud and a grunt as my butt made contact with the surface. At least I was back on solid ground.
I clumsily gathered my now unfolded clothes and shoved them back into my luggage bags. All in one motion, I heaved the bags into the bed of my truck. Walking around to the driver side door, I held tightly to the truck as I moved, hoping to avoid a repeat of the moments before. As I sat in my seat waiting for the heater to warm-up the cab and for the frost covered windows to clear, I decided the roads might be as slippery as my porch and sidewalk, so using my seatbelt would be a good idea. As soon as I could see clearly enough through my half frozen windshield, I revved my rusty engine, shifted into drive and I was off for a weekend of snowboarding and snow tubing with some of my friends at Seven Springs Ski Resort.
The heavy back end of my old, red pick-up truck whipped around violently as the tires’ tight grip on the road relinquished, allowing them to spin smoothly over the black ice. My left hand instinctively released the now useless steering wheel and flung in the air to shield my terrified, half...