Sally Breslin: My Life: I'LL NEVER BE AN ICE PRINCESS!

The problem I have with winter isn’t the cold or the snow…it’s the ice.

Already, after only one minor dusting of snow, my driveway is covered with ice. I remember when I first had it paved, the guy who showed up to give me the estimate asked if I wanted to add a heating element underneath the asphalt to keep ice from forming.

I’d never even heard of such a thing.

“Heated?” I asked. “That sounds like something only a millionaire living in a mansion would have.”

He said, “Well, your driveway is entirely in the shade. The sun never hits it to melt anything, so you’re pretty much guaranteed to end up with an ice slick the entire winter.”

“I’ll take my chances,” I said, imagining all of the problems a heated driveway might bring, like a bunch of animals spread out across it to keep warm, or the system breaking down and requiring guys with jackhammers to attack my driveway to make repairs.

In retrospect, I honestly wish I’d taken the guy’s advice.

I remember the first flop I took on the ice in my driveway. I’d been walking out to get the mail and the next thing I knew, I was on my back on the ground. I didn’t have my cell phone with me, and my driveway is a quarter-mile long, so most of it isn’t even visible from the road. I had visions of myself lying out there until the spring thaw. Or, I'd thought, maybe I'd be lucky and a deer would walk past so I could grab onto its leg and let it drag me out to the road where someone might find me.

As it turned out, my fall resulted in only a bruise the diameter of a pencil eraser on my leg. I was fine.

But that was then. I’m much older and more brittle now, with a lot less bounce to the ounce.

As bad as my driveway is, it isn’t the worst place to walk in the winter around here. No, that award goes to the Family Dollar store in Allenstown. For many winters now, I’ve had to pray for my life every time I’ve visited that store.

Just the other day, after the aforementioned light dusting of snow, I headed over there to pick up a few things…and couldn’t believe my eyes. Family Dollar and Rite Aid share a huge parking lot. Rite Aid’s half was spotless and dry – not a speck of snow or ice anywhere. Family Dollar’s side, however, was covered with snow, wet spots and so many icy tire tracks, I honestly was afraid to set foot out of my car, for fear I’d slide underneath it. And since no parking lines were visible, everyone parked wherever they wanted.

It made the place look kind of like the aftermath of a pile-up on the Interstate.

As I inched my way toward the store, I noticed that at least the small slope rising up to the door was cleared and salted, but that was all. It was as if the store were giving the message, “If you manage to survive walking across our parking lot without fracturing any essential body parts, you will be rewarded with an actual patch of bare asphalt!”

I’m not sure why Family Dollar’s side of the lot is always so bad in the winter. Maybe two different companies each own a half of the lot and their guy is too cheap to hire someone to take care of their side.

Or maybe a store employee ticked off the guy who’s supposed to plow the entire lot and he fiendishly chuckles and says, as he's clearing only Rite Aid’s side, “Good luck, Family Dollar! This will teach you not to ignore me when I keep asking you to restock my favorite Snickers bars!”

Anyway, out of sheer desperation to keep my skeletal structure intact, I bought something called ice treads. Basically, they are iron cleats embedded in thermoplastic rubber that you stretch on over your shoes or boots.

I must admit the treads work well and really dig into the ice…that is, when they actually stay on your feet. I’ve discovered that trying to stretch them on over my boots is more dangerous than the ice itself. I take a size 9 boot and bought the XL treads, which the package says will fit up to a size 11 women’s shoe and a size 13 men’s.

All I can say is I would love to have the manufacturer personally show me how a man with a size 13 shoe is able to pull those treads on over his boots. Whenever I try to put them on, I have to tug with both hands to get the rubber to stretch all the way back to my heel. Most of my attempts result in the rubber acting like a slingshot, flying off the boot and hitting the wall. If nothing else, I figure I can always use it for a weapon.

I can see it all now…I’ll be holding one of the treads, yanked all the way back in a position to let it fly, while I’m shouting, “Take one more step, buddy, and you’ll get a face full of metal cleats!”

I have to laugh when I complain about the ice in my driveway and my friends say, “Go get a bucket of sand down at the landfill and sprinkle it over your driveway.”

That bucket would have to be the size of the one on the roof at KFC. There are roads in town that are shorter than my driveway.

So I have only a few options to prevent myself from slipping and flopping this winter: hire someone to chop down about 300 trees so the sun can hit my driveway; install one of those driveway heating systems, or order a whole truckload of sand.

I think it’ll be a lot easier if I just hibernate.

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Sally Breslin is an award-winning syndicated columnist who has written regularly for newspapers and magazines all of her adult life. She is the author of several novels in a variety of genres, from humor and romance to science-fiction. Contact her at: sillysally@att.net

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