Friday, December 9

The Blind Leading the Snowblower

So this morning Joanie awakened me with the idea of blowing the 7-8 inches of snow we received last night off the driveway. My response..."I've never done that before. I'm not sure I know how." I'm not kidding here people. I honestly have very limited knowledge of how to operate pushable lawn and driveway machinery. My knowledge of lawn mowers came to halt the first time I volunteered to mow the lawn and I slaughtered a frog. I bawled for an hour in my room and vowed to never mow again. I haven't since.

But, today I ventured outdoors and did the driveway...all 2 miles of it (okay maybe I'm exaggerating here, but it's really really long and crooked.) And the whole time I was doing it, I thought to myself--If I was in Louisiana I wouldn't be doing this. It would be 67 degrees. If I was in Louisiana I wouldn't be doing this....." I think I must have missed the snowblower gene. When I was done (after slaving for 2.5 hours) it looked like a blind person had done it. I really think I just moved the snow around the drive way and packed it down. There wasn't very much removal about it. There was a lot of snow blowing in my face and a lot of shoulder blade pain. When I compared our driveway to the neighbors', there was a lot of cement showing on theirs and ours just looked like an extension of the yard. The feeling just returned in my thighs an hour ago.

It's funny. Another thought I had while doing the driveway was this--and I may deny this later--I contemplated abandoning any feminist inclination I may have had or will have in the future. I think there are certain jobs in this world that I'm completely okay with folks with Y chromosomes taking care of--this is one of them. I do not aspire equality here. You can have it fellas.

When I think of ever buying a home in the north, I'm definitely going to consider the length of the driveway. And, if I'm buying real estate for just me I think I'll consider a condo or just keep on renting. Yea renting...the life when you look out the window at the snow plow and say yea...clean that up, please. And the maintenance staff shovels the walks. Yea, that's beauty.

4 comments:

katherine said...

oh becky, i totally agree with you on all accounts. last year my downstairs neighbors shoveled the sidewalk in front of our house. but now no one lives there, so i have to do it. and it took a while for that to occur to me. there are no sidewalks on sunset lane. and also, i don't own a shovel. i was out of town this week, and while i was gone, there was a blizzard. i returned to my house to find the sidewalk uncleared, and a shovel propped up against my door, undoubtedly from some well-meaning or ill-tempered neighbor. so, i don't really feel so bad for you with your motor-powered snow blower!

bexala said...

I used a shovel, too. I did the little walk up the house with it because I was so fed up with the blower. It kept clogging and I was afraid it would eat my hand off.

I'd offer to come help you, but all I could really offer would probably be some comic relief. I'm not so good at the snow removal.

swtpmarie said...

Praise God for renting! Although, the snow removal isn't done in the most time efficient way ever and I find myself shoveling a dinky path from my door to my garage...but it's still better than having to do the whole sidewalk and what not.

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