Snow day!

The United Nations of Carpool experienced that rare event last week--a Texas snowstorm. But not just any snow storm, no, this was the biggest storm in recorded local history. Over a foot of snow in some areas, and no snowplows or salt trucks to be had. But this is not the place to chronicle the exploits of Texans in the snow. The excuse that they have no experience in it is a valid one. So we won't mock them for their unnecessary slowness, or their ability to careen off the road on a clear, straight stretch of highway. There’s no sport in ridiculing people going 15 mph in a 4WD truck on a mostly clear highway, and it’s probably for the better that a few of them somehow managed to throw their vehicles off the road with such force that they came to rest dozens of yards away, perpendicular to a long, clear, straight stretch of roadway. Those people, with their preternatural collision skills, are a menace to everyone else, and their spectacular accidents are evidence of Darwinian driving skill selection at work. After parking the Civic in a shrubbery after sliding across 4 lanes of traffic, that driver will vow never to attempt to go anywhere in the snow, ever again, thus sparing the lives and lawns of many people over the years.
Additionally, the Texans are handicapped by the utter lack of snow-clearing equipment. Since this never happens, there are no plows or salt trucks, which veteran snow drivers take for granted. It’s not only the inability to drive in adverse conditions; it’s the inability to deal with those adverse conditions on a municipal level that makes it so difficult. What would be a manageable and unremarkable 4 inch snowfall is magnified into wholesale debacle by the inability to move any of it off the roadways.
So there will be no mocking of Texans in the snow. They are hilarious enough without my commentary.
The Texans, their skills lay elsewhere.

The delegate from PRL cannot describe the UNC on the day of the storm, as she drove by herself. However, the delegate from Caucasia-NCA and the local envoy joined her in a snowball fight during lunch that day.

The local envoy, being local, and not living during the previous record snowstorm (a paltry 7.8 inches in 1964), had never been sledding before. This travesty was rectified with a cardboard box, industrial plastic sheeting (and very wet pants):

This was capped off by a terribly mature architectural endeavor:

(For the record, a truck this size has zero trouble plowing through several hundred pounds of misshapen snowmen)

The next morning, the UNC arrived at work on time to find that very few others had done the same, and that the roadways and parking lots were under a foot of unplowed snow. The PRL delegate had been scheduled to drive, which was not the greatest choice, given the circumstances, but the carpool matrix must be obeyed, and the little Saturn bravely soldiered on.

For your own reference, if you are driving a small sedan through the snow, and a man whose provenance is a country that consists mostly of the Sahara Desert tries to give you instructions on how to maneuver on ground that is simultaneously muddy and covered in snow, trust your instincts and DO NOT LISTEN TO HIM. He does not know what he is talking about. However, it is satisfying to make such a person get out and push when his advice leads to being mired in the snow mud. Not that this delegate would know.