Snow Days Are Our Friend

I just came back inside from shoveling snow. We had our first big snow storm last night. It’s beautiful outside. The shoveling took me a lot longer than I had thought it would. This house has a much bigger area to maintain. I don’t mind though. Shoveling snow and mowing grass are the two things I really like to do outside.

I did our whole driveway. Then I did our sidewalks. I got to the porch and I was feeling pretty good. Almost time to go inside. Then I see our 91 year old neighbor standing on her back porch waving to me. That sounds like a nice picture I know, but what it means is that she wants something. I had a sinking feeling that I knew what it was.

When I got over to her house she was acting quite distressed. She couldn’t get in touch with the guy who usually does her shoveling. She asked if I’d mind just making a couple of tracks down the driveway so that a car could get in and out. I had thought that was what she needed. I told her it was no problem.

She thanked me and started to go inside when she let out a little yelp. I hid a smile (because it was cute) and she turned and told me she had locked herself outside. Now I was worried. I thought I was going to have to host this person all day until she could get her door opened again. Then after about 5 minutes of babbling on about what she should do, she snaps her fingers and laughs. She just remembered that she had a spare key stashed outside somewhere. (You have to see the animation when she gets going. It's hilarious!) I went and got it for her so she could get back inside. The whole time she was going on about how she had never done that before. Uh huh. Then why did you have a key stashed outside ‘just in case’?

As I started doing the ‘tracks’ in the driveway I realized that leaving snow to melt and re-freeze in those tracks made no sense, so I just shoveled the whole driveway. Then I realized that her front walk had to be done so the mailman could get to the mailbox, so I went ahead and did that too.

She came back out and thanked me profusely for helping her out. She wanted to pay me and when I refused she gave me the weirdest look. She told me about the neighbors who all had snow blowers and would never offer to help. Then she thanked me again and I finally got back inside my house. It was quite the start to the day. I didn’t expect 2.5 hours of shoveling snow.

So now here I am, having a bologna and grape jelly sandwich, sucking down a cherry Pepsi and checking in on blog friends. I guess I could get in to work now. The roads look Ok, but wtf. I’m not going to bother. Besides, if I go back out there the old lady might need me to take her shopping or something. Snow days are a gift. Time for screwing around. I can’t risk that. Right? ;)