Stupid Global Warming

The last week has been interesting. It began to snow on the 26th and did not stop until the 27th. When it was done we were covered in about a foot of the nasty cold stuff. Not only did we get buried, but now I had to eat a great big piece of karma pie.  My Mother and Sister cheerfully served that up to me as they pointed out that we have had more snow in Virginia then they have in New York this year.


Dearth spent the night at our friend’s house so I took the pickup truck to go get him. The snow was still coming down pretty hard when I arrived and I pulled into the drive way without thinking. There is a large dip in the front of their driveway. The pickup is rear wheel drive. When the front of the truck went into the dip the back tires could not get enough traction to move it out. I had my friend jump in the driver’s seat and Dearth and I try to push it out. Just as we were about to start my boss calls my cell. He needs me to cover for the other over night guy. He is snowed in and cannot make it in. My boss is from the same general location of NY that I am. He also knows that I am not afraid to drive in the snow. I tell him that I will go in after I get the truck unstuck and get a short nap (it was supposed to be my day off). Two of my friend’s neighbors lend us their backs and we get the truck unstuck. I didn’t get the nap.

I make it to work and find that one of the city plows had done the same thing that I did with the pickup. To add to his pain three more plows were there to help. That entertained me for a few hours as I watched them try to get the big truck unstuck. I didn’t even know the city had that many plows. Of course they do not know how to plow. Single tracks down the middle of three lane roads, unplowed exit ramps and long lines of snow piles in the road are just a few of the things you can look forward to when they plow. When I tried to leave the next morning three lines of snow about a foot and a half high were in front of the parking garage exit. I did my best Dukes of Hazard impression coming out of the garage. I got a little bit of air, plowed through the snow and fish tailed as I made my escape. I only regret not having a horn that played Dixie.

You may remember that I said that I didn’t even own a snow shovel? Well I don’t. So I had to use the small flat shovel in my shed. I used it to shovel off our front sidewalk and three of my neighbor’s. The shovel is about half the length of a typical snow shovel. This means that I was bent over for the entire time. On top of that it is made of metal. It is excellent for breaking up the ice, but snow sticks to it. To keep the snow from sticking I had to give the shovel a pretty hard snap to shake the snow off of each scoop. The next day was painful. I could hardly stand up straight. I’m sure there were some muscles that weren’t tender, but I couldn’t find them. After the sun dried up the little bit I missed, maintenance came by and salted the nice dry sidewalk (morons).

It has warmed up again. I only needed a sweat shirt to go outside today and most of the snow is melted away. Hopefully that will be the last of it for some years.  Happy New Year everyone!