Pluggin' in the Car

Some of you may come from the Great White North.  Snow boots, parkas, double layer long underwear, Ice Chippers, snow tires, and ice fishing are just another part of daily life.  I, on the other hand, grew up going to the beach on New Year's Eve.  The heaviest jacket I ever owned was a glorified sweat shirt with poly fill padding.  While the fog may get thick in places and frost would coat the early morning trees, I had no use for snow boots or long underwear.

When we moved to the Great White North, I thought the above list was all I needed.  Instead I found out that there was "stuff" that I didn't even know existed, let alone was used.  Some of it is comical.  I will never forget the first time my engineer walked in the door with a snow mobile mask and ski goggles (he trekked to work). It took everything I had not to laugh at him.  Notice it is "at"...because he was definitely NOT laughing.  Nothing was quite as comical as my trying to walk through deep snow in my subzero boots.

While I was pregnant, my engineer and I would bundle up and go for a walk at night after he got home from work.  At this point in my pregnancy, I could still tie my own shoes...if barely.  I remember putting on all the needed layers, quickly starting to resemble the Charmine Kid with the toilet paper.  Then, with my thick wool socks, I would shove my feet into those boots.  Holding tight onto the banister, I would stomp my feet, trying my best to just get my poor feet where they needed to be.  Carefully lowering myself, I would tie them up, only to realize that I then needed help back up.  The look of amusement and love that would cross his face as he hefted me up stays with me to this day.  Night after night we repeated this before going out into the still frozen world outside.

I have to admit, for as much as I HATE the dark and cold, the beauty in that stillness takes my breath away.  No one in their right mind went out at night, walking in the bitter cold.  It was just the two of us in that frozen stillness, hand in hand, talking about nothing in particular, yet everything as well.  I remember how the lights in the windows gave off a sense of familial intimacy that existed behind each window.  Some were the cold blue glow of a television, but others were the warm gold of table lamps, which gave a promise of conversations that may be taking place inside.

On the return home from these evening walks, we would make sure that the car was plugged in.  Now this, along with the subzero boots, was something else that completely threw off my understanding of the world.  Plugging in my car had NEVER crossed my mind.  Are you kidding me?  I remember how stupid I felt when we first arrived in the Great White North and I would see these plugs literally hanging out of the hood of every car I saw.  I wasn't about to ask what it was all about.  Obviously EVERYONE was doing it, I just didn't know what IT was all about!

My mind ran over so many different reasons for the plugs.  They had SOMEHOW gotten conversion kits for older cars to make them completely electric??  If so, why had I not heard about this sooner?!?!  And why, of all the places I had lived, was this the first place I had ever seen such a promising innovation?  Honestly, my mind was so confused I refused to talk to anyone about it.  Yes, I was new here, but I didn't want to look like a complete idiot.  The fact that I felt like one didn't help the situation in the least.  Luckily, my confusion came to an end one evening when my engineer came home from work.

He had come in and said that we needed to get an engine block heater installed in the cars.  At this point I had been wondering what the heck that stupid cord was all about for so long that I couldn't hold it in any longer, "a what??"  An engine block heater...you know, to keep the engine from completely freezing over.  "Ok!"  I tried to act as normal as I could, but, inside, I was rejoicing!

No, I wasn't an idiot after all!!  Californians don't have a reason for plugging in their cars to keep them from freezing, so I didn't miss anything at all.  I hadn't missed some ground breaking news story about gas to electric car conversion kits for older cars.  All that time, I had wondered how on earth their cars were surviving the winters, and it was there, dangling from underneath the hood, right in front of me.