It’s Sunday and the entire town of Ann Arbor is covered in a shroud of laziness. There are very few people on the road, even fewer than what I see on a normal working day.
Being fresh off the boat from India, I have no means of transportation. The trip from my rented apartment to the GDI office is around 4 miles. Not a terrible distance to cover.
I want to get there so I can study for my upcoming interview with prospective clients in the consulting world. The sun’s shining and the slightly cold air is perfect for a walk. I have a half sleeve shirt on and just don’t realize that I am an oddity walking down that road with people covered in jackets and gloves.
It’s almost 4.00 PM and the couple of odd people that have shown up for work are about to leave. They ask if I need a ride and I am too shy to inconvenience them. I tell them I would be here for a while and a couple of friends would be picking me up. My friends are my two legs and they usually can carry me distances, at least back in India.
The sun is almost setting as I get out of the office and start to walk back. There are small white flakes floating in the air and it’s starting to get cold.
I walk as fast as my legs would carry me as the snow slowly starts to fall at a steady clip. My hands with the half-sleeved shirt on are numb from the frost and the formal leather shoes I have are no match for the Michigan winter.
I am shivering as I walk down quickly, barely having covered half of a distance looking around to see if I can spot a car, a house, or a human being. I close my eyes and think about the sweltering heat of the Indian sun, a trick taught to me by an old friend back home.
It does not work.
I look at a signpost from the local bank that shows the time and temperature. It’s 23 degrees and falling.
The apartments start to show up in the distance and I pick up the pace. I have never experienced cold or as a matter of fact, the brutality of the North American winter. This is my first experience and it has left me numb and shaking even though I am trying to be man enough to wade through it.
It’s almost been a solid hour of brisk walk and I am home as I ring the buzzer hoping to get in and crawl to bed.
There is no answer. They have all gone shopping at Costco. There are no people outside the apartments.
At 7.30, an hour after I reached the apartment, the car pulls up and my roomies pile out. They say they found me knocked out right close to the door.
The thermal heating from the middle insulation of the apartment has done its job. I wake up in the apartment covered in blankets and the heat turned on full blast.
My roommates are horrified by my condition and think of calling 911. Mustering all the remaining consciousness, I shake my head in refusal.
Even in this condition, I know that calling 911 entails spending some money, money. Money that I did not have or could not afford to splurge. Whatever that amount is, it’s more than enough to compensate for my condition.
It takes a day to feel normal again, but I bounce back with the help of the thick blanket and half a bottle of cheap rum.
A good thing did come out of this incident. Now I end up donating winter coats off my back to random homeless people,
Even at the cost of incurring my woman’s wrath…
