Battling the snowblower

Sue & I spent the weekend of the big storm in Hudson dogsitting for Sue's sister Bev & her wife, Denise. Sent the following funny story to my pal Amy in California.

Ok... more Monumental Acts of Stupidity. You know the text message I sent you today? About the snowblower???

[I had sent her a txt msg that said, "If I ever meet the guy that invented the electric snowblower ... ... I'm gonna kick him in the nuts. Power cord. That's all I'm saying."]

WEEEELLLLLLL... when we were in the truck on the drive home, B&D called, and I was telling them about our experience using their blower. We've wanted one for a long time, but the Crazy Lady (our land lady Mary) originally didn't want us to get one. She doesn't want ANYTHING in the basement or garage. She's since changed her mind, but Sue still thinks she doesn't want us to get one. As Sue doesn't like (actually HATES) talking to her, she's really not taking my word for it that Mary's changed her tune.

I was telling Denise that I HATED the power cord. Friggin' thing... it kept coming unplugged, and then when you backed up, you had to move the cord all around so you wouldn't run over it... sever it in the auger and get electricuted, whatever, and it kept getting wrapped around the wheel. I'm like, "We are NEVER getting an electric."

Denise asked, "You left it PLUGGED IN?! It only needs to be plugged in to START! After that, you unplug it!!!"

DOH!

Ok, I come from a long line of plowers. My people plow. We don't blow. We buy big trucks, rig them with fancy blinking beacons and rotating lights. Kick ass rides. We don't blow! How was I supposed to know?! Ok, they left me the manual, but I didn't have time to read it. We wanted to blow the Michelle's-knee-deep snow out of the drive to make our escape, because we knew we were gonna have to come home and shovel the Crazy Lady's drive. We did their whole drive. Ok, other than my stupidity, the blower was REAL sweet!

We called Crazy Lady from the car, and she said she paid this guy (our lease says we have to pay 1/2 of whatever she pays for snow removal) to shovel and she WHAT a HORRIBLE job he did. She paid him $125, and it was a terrible job! We're like, "We have to pay 1/2 of $125?!"

On the news, they were saying yesterday that this was going to be a Top 10 worst of storms. Then this a.m., they changed it to a "once or twice in a lifetime" storm. The likes of '78 or '96. (Ok, so '05 is thrice in a life, no??) It's not that bad. Come on! It's all media hype. I understand that some of it is public safety scare tactics to keep yahoos in off the roads. But that's Darwinism. You get a bunch of videos and stay in. End of story. Not that bad. It's snow, not forest fires, locusts or plagues. Then on the way home, they're saying, "Boston schools are cancelled for Mon & Tues." I'm like, is there something I don't know about running schools that they'd need to cancel as far out as Tues?

We get to Boston, and I was like, "oh." I forget. In Boston, they can plow, but there's no place to put it. Once we got on to the smaller roads closer to home, it was pretty much 1 lane. Foster St was pretty tight, and once we got to Rose Garden, there was a pickup plowing it. It was barely passable, even with the 4WD. Crazy Lady was out yelling at the guy in the plow telling him how to do his job. People seem to LOVE that.

We made it up the hill, and turned into the drive, looking like a Nissan commercial, I'm sure. Weeeeee! She was right, the guys did a TERRIBLE job. They shoveled out 1 car path right up to her car. Our side of the drive was now under it's original snow, plus the snow from HER side of the drive!!! At least we were able to drive in and unload. Then we had to go out and shovel our side of the drive. I am not going to the gym in the a.m. If I can walk, it shall be a miracle. I hope my trainer Dawn "Killer" Keller takes it easy on us in my lunchtime exercise class tomorrow.

Thus is the end of my snow story. I've been cracking myself up all day, though, thinking of me going up and down the driveway trailing the powercord, and the neighbors laughing their asses off at me as they look out their picture windows.

;)
~m