This is an email my friend sent me who just moved to Chicago. He was raised in the south, but has lived all over including LA, Arizona, and China.

Hey everyone, I hope all of you are doing well. I just thought I’d check in on my lunch break and give an account of how things have gone so far.
Day one, I arrived uneventfully to a nice, sunny day — about 60 degrees outside. “This cold weather thing is overrated” I thought to myself, as I took off my jacket and headed into the rental car office. I proceeded to get settled into the new apartment and await my first day of work, with the temperature progressively dropping each day. By Tuesday it was downright FREEZING outside as I headed into the grocery store. I emerged 45 minutes later to find a 1/4 inch thick sheet of ice on the road. I made the 1/2 mile trip back to my place with lots of unintentional swerving and turning. Not one to panic I figured the army of 1 million snow plows (that Corey and Kent had vividly described to me when telling me snow wasn’t a big deal up North) were all waiting to swarm the streets and meet it head on.
The first sign that something was wrong was when my regularly scheduled TV program was interrupted to bring a severe snow storm alert. Hmm, I thought, Corey and Kent had said that upcoming snow barely even gets a mention during the news. I awoke the next morning to 6 inches of snow. I trudged out into the cold and chiseled, shoveled (with a dust pan), and scraped my way into the car, and cautiously drove to work, taking an extra 30 minutes to get here. Okay, not so bad, I thought as snow continued falling. I went about my day at work, but then at about 3 pm the “white noise” makers suddenly stopped, leaving us all in an eerie silence. Then a voice piped in over the loudspeaker … due to inclement weather, home office is closing.”
Not being one to argue with home office about inclement weather, I rushed to my car, where I proceeded to once again chisel, scrape and dig my way into my car and pulled out of my parking spot. I then sat there inexplicably for 30 minutes in a line of cars and didn’t move an inch. (not one inch) Realizing I may go through a tank of gas just sitting in the parking lot, I pulled back in and waited it out for a couple of hours inside. Then went back out, chiseled, scraped, and dug my way to my car and joined the line of cars going home. This time it took nearly an hour to get home, across ice, snow and sludge, but somehow I made it back alive and settled in for the night.
This morning when I woke up, 12 more inches of snow had fallen during the night, putting the total now at 1.5 – 2 feet of snow in two days. By this time it was lucky that I remembered where I parked, otherwise I would not have known which car shaped snow pile belonged to me. I went out and chiseled, scraped and dug my car out and began the trip back to work. I’d like to think I catch on to things quickly, but keep in mind that on the third day of work, it’s nice to still be able to see the road signs along the way telling you which lane is a turning lane, or for that matter be able to see if you’re driving on the road or in someone’s yard. Luckily the good people of Chicago set me straight with a friendly tap of the horn and then they’d point me in the right direction. (For some reason people point with the middle finger in Chicago.)
But once again I averted disaster I made the trip to work. This time about an hour and 15 minutes. I’m now sitting here at my desk thinking over a cost/benefit analysis report of why we should move home office to Nashville. I’ll turn that in to Ed Liddy next time I see him. By the way, did I mention it’s still snowing outside? Take care….