Covered parking is something special

I think the caste system for cars is this; top: garaged cars, middle: car-ported cars, bottom: uncovered cars.

My car is definitely in the bottom category. The poor thing has never been garaged. The only time it's shielded from the night sky is when it's covered in a blanket of snow or ice. Or tree sap. Or bird crap.

In nice summer weather, it's not bad at all for my car to have to sit out under the night sky. But in inclement weather, I feel bad for the little guy. For one thing, it's previous owner installed an aftermarket sunroof. When it rains, it leaks like photos of a celebrity checking into rehab.

And then there are the elements of winter. Snow and ice are horrible for the both of us; it has to be parked in it, I have to scrape it.

I don't know about you, but I have my morning routine down pat. Showering, dressing, eating, etc., are all allotted a specific number of minutes. If I schedule any slack into the schedule, it would have to come out of my sleep time. I'm not willing to do that.

Thus, if I wake up and it has snowed, I know I'll have to pick up the extra minutes needed for scraping my car windows from another essential task. Usually it's the soap lather in the shower that get's nixed; there's no way I'm cutting into my breakfast time.

Then there are the times that I don't look outside once I wake up. I carry on with my usual routine and head out the door at the proper time, only to see a build-up of ice all over my car. It's a race against time to create a couple peep holes in my front windshield.

However, this year I've decided to make the unplanned morning chore of scraping ice from my windows a little more bearable.

I'm going to keep a bottle of fruit-flavored syrup in my car, along with a stack of Styrofoam cups. Then I'll collect the ice shavings that fly off as I madly scrape away. A fresh snow cone could really make the morning commute more enjoyable.