I was walking down Buswell Street, when I saw a snow-plastered car trying to maneuver from a parallel parking on the street.
The windshield wipers came on, throwing thick batches of snow off the front window. But the driver didn’t realize that ice had formed on the windshield glass, underneath the snow. The flimsy wipers hit this jagged ice and were promptly torn up.
The car, meanwhile, ineffectively nudged back and forth between mounds of snow and ice (the deposits of a snowplow clearing the streets). As I passed, studying this predicament in sympathy, I saw the driver peering out at me. In the shadowy interior of the car, the driver appeared to be a frustrated young woman. So I pantomimed shoveling snow, trying to tell her that the car looked very stuck otherwise.
But my humanitarian intents must have come across differently. The woman rolled down the window, the thick snow plopping off, and leaned forward. She was much older then I though. Then she snapped, “Do you want something? I’m from Minnesota; I know what I’m doing."
I hastily apologized and moved away, of course. But, as my friend (who heard the story) said to me, what I should have done is replied back, “Really? Because you look like a noob.”