Living the Dream

Winter is afoot here in America’s Heartland. No, there really isn’t anything unusual about that, for winter is our longest season; people here are good at dealing with it. What is a bit strange is that it took so long to really get going.

After a major snowstorm that came earlier than usual in November, we were spoiled by week after week of warm weather− and then all… I was going to say “all hell broke loose” but if this is from hell, then hell has really frozen over.

Anyway, winter has come with a vengeance− for three solid weeks now.

I had a plan for this winter, one that I thought was fairly clever. Late last October we finally sold our house in Illinois, and free from that financial drain I gave an ultimatum to She Who Must Be Obeyed: Either I get a snow blower, or we hire a snow removal service. Of course, no cheap one would do; it had to be one of the good ones− heavy duty, wide and with an electric starter.

She called an old high school friend who has a service.

That may sound great to you, maybe even better, but here’s the thing: Unlike doing it yourself, a service comes along when they get to you and in a big storm, that can be the next day… Meanwhile, your access is blocked by a mountain of snow and ice thoughtfully left in your driveway by the snowplow. Even so, that hasn’t really been a big issue up until now because She Who Must Be Obeyed has been on a temporary assignment at Fort Leavenworth for three weeks… but now she’s back.

She was supposed to arrive on Friday night, so I had to clear her way in by hand because it was snowing all Friday. Predictably her flight was cancelled. Then she came in on Saturday morning and I had to clear the overnight snow myself so she could get in. Then on Sunday morning I had to clear Saturday night’s snow so we could get out and while we were gone, the service comes and does a bit clearing, and Bam! You get charged for your own work.

Quite naturally, it snowed again last night and today is her first day back in the office. It was only 3 or 4 inches so she decided she could punch through the ice berm the plow had dumped in our driveway and I agreed. If you aren’t familiar with these conditions, you get up a bit of speed and momentum will carry you through, but under no circumstance can you stop in the process for if you do you will be stuck.

She leaves here at 4 am and cars never get in her way on our street… until today: She had to stop.

So there I was, digging her out, pushing, and digging some more and pushing some more and then chipping ice off of the pavement at 4 am and then pushing yet again and finally she was on her way. Based upon last week’s experience, I’ll have to clear everything out again this afternoon so she can get back in, and the service will get here about 8 tonight and I’ll have to pay for my own work again.

Yep, that’s me, I’m a just a young kid living the dream.

It’s supposed to snow some more today, then Tuesday and Wednesday the wind is coming to blow snow everywhere; we’re supposed to hit -34 (F) on Wednesday, can’t wait for that. Don’t worry though, over next weekend it’s going to warm up and rain on top of all that snow so there will be flooding. Next week, they are predicting snow four days in a row again…

Yep, living the dream all right.

I wonder, do you suppose Trump is doing this? I’ll bet that’s it, yep, we need an investigation for sure.

Or… maybe we need to talk about that snow blower again. You know how it is, we boys love their toys.