Coffee on my windshield

Friday on my way to work, it had just snowed a little. Nothing huge, but enough to make the roads wet in town, and that beautiful glaze on the interstates. Since the city of Cedar Rapids uses that liquid salt chemical like it's going to expire tomorrow, the roads in town were fine - just really wet.

As I reached city limits, the spray from the car in front of me hit my windshield, and immediately dried. My windshield was speckled white. "No problem, that's what windshield washer fluid is for!", I thought.

As I went to pull the lever to get the washer fluid on my windshield, the wipers turned on - but no fluid came out. My windshield was smeared with white dirt.

Off and on this year my washer fluid line has frozen up for some reason - likely water in the line. I've tried a couple times to fix this, and it always is fixed temporarily, then freezes up again. Here's where we were at 7am on Friday morning, in the middle of I-380, going 50 mph.

I panicked! I now could see about 20% out of my windshield, was going 50 mph, the nearest exit was not within sight, and I was in the middle lane.

"Water! Throw water on the windshield!", I said to myself. I looked around for a half full water bottle (which there are usually at least ten of in my car), and there was none. All that was within sight was my cup of coffee that I had made at home.

I grab the coffee, pop off the lid, and roll down my window. I reach my hand around to the windshield and throw the coffee on it.

Here's where the problem begins, as I was going 50 mph. Do you know what happens when you throw liquid forward into a 50 mph oncoming wind - or as you are driving into it? Yea, you can imagine... (Did I mention I was blonde?)

The top 1/8th of my windshield had coffee on it, and the rest had gone a) up my sleeve, b) in my hair and c) down the side of my car. No where that I wanted it too.

As I continue on, the spray from the car in front of me gets worse, which is actually a good thing because then my windshield wipers have enough "wet" to get the windshield clean. At one point I had to pull off in a parking lot and smear snow all over my windshield to wet it enough to totally clean it off. Nice.

As for me, I went to work with my sleeve soaked with coffee, and it looks like someone had puked down the side of my car. At least that coffee had some suisse mocha chocolate in it, so I had the pleasure of smelling like a cafe mocha all day long...

I've got to get that wiper fluid fixed!