Not in case of emergency. Ice. Like water in solid form.

Yeah. Ok, a background. I don't worry too much about winter emergencies. I'm a very competent winter driver, make sure my car is up to snuff, keep an emergency kit in the car, have adequate tools. But today I learned a lesson I won't soon forget.

After living in PA my whole life, I had though I'd seen it all. I was wrong. 2 feet of snow? I'd take that in a heartbeat over what I dealt with. So what happened you say?

On monday I drove home through moderate snow conditions. I drive a 2004 saturn ion redline. It has aftermarket kumho all season performance tires. The new ones, which offer 'improved winter traction'. This is true. They worked as good as any I've used, barring snow tires.

I got home with a mile of slush on my car (I drive 30 miles one way to work) and thought nothing of it. After all, I've seen it thousands of times before and it's nothing major.

The next morning, my fiancee comes in crying. She's wet, cold, and pissed. It started raining on her while she was shovelling snow. We got about.. say 10 inches of snow. So I go out and finish the shovelling job as best I can but begin to notice the rain is making it very difficult.

I finish her car and get to mine. I clear off the car top, windows, etc and begin shovelling the back. I get about 3/4ths through before it really starts to freeze up. I myself am cold and figure I'll let it go.

Snow/freezing rain off and on all through that day.

I come out today to my car literally encased in solid ice. The snow became a sheet of ice. The slush? An icy barrier. I literally had to CHISEL my car out with a good screwdriver and hammer. I was literally cutting out ice blocks and 2 foot sheets of ice that were 2 inches thick. The ice blocks were about 10 inches thick. My stepdad is going over with a chainsaw and pickaxe now to finish the job.

6.... HOURS of that before I finally called it quit and got someone to pick me up. I've seen ice before, I've seen snow before, but never have I seen 10 inches of ice before. THAT, ladies and gentlemen, well and truly sucks.

So. What lesson did I learn? My emergency kit for my car will include more food for fuel, a craftsman screwdriver, craftsman hammer and a good pencil torch. Because seriously, an ice scraper isn't good enough. Or heck, maybe I'll just get an ice axe/hammer. Whatever can break that CONCRETE they call ice.