Ice on the Windshield?

Don't you absolutely love this time of year? You wake up in a nice toasty bed, you get up get showered and dressed, kiss the cat, feed the wife and put put her out. When you do so you see your car has a layer of ice encasing it,(this will cost you some time). So, I head for the linen closet to get my windshield de-icer. In my linen closet what I have an abundance of is bath towels, two shelves full. I found a long time ago I prefer bath towels to standard towels because you can get completely dry after a shower using one of those instead of standard towels because they are larger, but I digress.   I grab a bath towel and run it under warm, not hot water, and soak the towel, just to the point where is completely soaked but not dripping, I do this by leaving it folded and rotating the towel. The towel then goes out the door with me, I stretch it out over the windshield, one towel covers the entire thing, I let it sit there and steam while I start the car. Flip the towel over, wipe down the windshield and head back in the house, letting the wife back in. 

Using a warm towel not only melts the ice but also heats the glass enough so it will not refreeze. Never use hot water unless you want to create a spider pattern effect. Hot on cold cracks glass.