The very first sentence, however, Lint has made up a word: Rumblescraped, used to describe a snowplow clearing the streets.
Dan watches the snowplow for a bit then decided to get his car started, which is described as being packed under an eight-inch "blanket of ermine".
An entire car coated in these? Think I could deal.
He for some reason kicks his car's right rear tire, something he considers to be "affectionate" and a "wake-up kick". He brushes away all the ermines snow, which we for some reason need a description of to reveal his "Bug with good rubber all around". I pitched this phrase into the void of Google and the top result was for table tennis, so I have a feeling Lint doesn't know what he's talking about either, which makes me feel we have a sense of solidarity.
We have about a paragraph of useless prose about how quirky his car is before he finally pulls out of the damned driveway goes back into the fucking house to say goodbye to his sleeping children, which is when we learn this is a flashback.
I hate flashbacks, especially flashbacks to "oh, this happened days ago"--why the fuck don't you just lead with the flashback!?
Then there is a flashback within the fucking flashback of Karen and their twins in the hospital bed. The narrative refers to her here as a "new mother" while only two sentences later refers to them having one older child who I guess doesn't matter.
They make some noises about how wonderful it is to have twins at their ripe old age of however many years like it's a huge deal. According to a brief search, women are actually more likely to have multiples after 35, so, hate to spoil your miracle who the fuck am I kidding?
Like a good little Christian mother, Karen abandoned her career to raise the children, because we all know that's what women are for.
The narrative against refers to the children, repeatedly, as "miracles". The issue is that Lint is trying to write two atheist, or at least two non-religious characters, which he does poorly because he can't get past his own religious viewpoints. He tries to roll over this by making his characters sound "elitist" (read, smarter) but little things like this really give him away. Also, reading an idiot's view of what smart people sound like is hilarious.
He goes to say goodbye to his wife, who sleeps under an electric blanket with a flannel nightgown.
By magic, the blanket is ripped from her past "the hem of her nightdress", so her ankle, maybe? How risque.
They make some kind of poorly-conceived inside joke about how she gave up her career as an elementary school principal to raise the children while he continued his work at a... radio show.
Good ol' Republican philosophy thrown in: "Bossing can be harder than working." Yeah, I'm sure sitting behind a desk is just as difficult as shelling oysters for twelve hours a day. Yes, I'm being hyperbolic; I'm just tired of seeing this ridiculous idea get touted. Workers aren't lazy--you're just a shitty manager who can't motivate people properly.
Dan apparently teleports down to his car and climbs in and finally he starts driving to work. The snow is still coming down but it's slower now.
There are a couple paragraphs of descriptions of Dan driving in the snow
Apparently, Lint forgot his own narrative at the beginning of the story, now describing the road as being a "pristine white" when the snowplow came by minutes ago.
After the smug narrative, we have two whole fucking paragraphs of thoughts. No actions, just two paragraphs of him thinking about their oldest son, again being a privileged piece of discarded foreskin about how these damned Millennials are so lazy they can't get a job. Fuck you, right?
As Dan deserves, he slams on his brakes to avoid hitting a slow-moving, 35-MPH vehicle. The Bug flips around in a 180, which is described in a way that, if it were food, would be plain white bread.
The vehicle in question is described, crazily, while the car is spinning around: It is a black Amish buggy pulled by a black horse with sleigh bells while two people dressed all in black sit in it. No idea how Dan heard the sleigh bells from inside his car.
35 is kind of fast for a buggy, isn't it?
Dan slides hopelessly into a ditch--so much for how good you are at driving in snow, huh, fuckhead?
Even after he is in the ditch, he continues to insist in his own narrative how great a driver he is and that it is all the Amish people's fault that he couldn't apparently just drive around them.
Dan gets out of the car and starts screaming at the Amish couple, who mostly ignore him, but the man spits tobacco at him. This enrages Dan and he charges after them, screaming, but because this is a Christian book, he can't use any "vulgar language" that might be offensive to the Lawd's ears.
The horse responds by shitting.
They deserve each other.
Dan takes off his hat and stomps on it like an old-timey cartoon. Delightful.
He watches the buggy "jingleclop" (another made-up word, courtesy Lint) away then goes back to his car.
A guy in a Jeep drives by and stops to tow him out. Dan checks him out a little and makes eyes at his Jeep. Lint, Jeeps are not the "classy" cars you seem to think of them as. Lint expands upon the idea of "class" and "Jeep" by explaining that the car is about 40k. Lol--look at the guy who doesn't understand how car payments or leases work. Then again, Lint looks like he grew up in an era where 40k is worth about $125k now, or thereabout, so that's probably where his brain is stuck at, though I am suspicious it has more to do with "rich people deserve it, see how nice this fictional person is".
The fictional person in question is none other than Mr. Masterson. The plot becomes slightly less watery, I suppose?
The two part ways and Dan continues his journey to work.
This is going to take me longer than the other books. Fuck, this was hard to read.
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