The White Blight

Philthydelphia mayor Michael Nutter stated that the city will start handing out fifty dollar tickets to enforce the law about clearing snow from sidewalks.

I believe the proper term is irony when a city won’t clear the streets yet fines you for not clearing your sidewalk.

London police announced the arrest of Kiera Knightley’s stalker.

You will note that I am typing from home, not prison.

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Now that the Stupor Bowl is over, television can return to (ab)normal. Even my wife, who was honestly interested in the outcome of the game, was shocked to discover that the game hadn’t even started by late afternoon. I guess the pre-pre-post-turbo-game show ran over (again).

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And hey, how about that snow?

Better yet, how about no snow?

Our `hood received damn near two feet of the white blight from Friday to Saturday. On Saturday, fearing the blast from the wife moreso than the snow, I got out with the shovel and did our walk. Fortunately for me, the snow was very light, allowing me to stretch out and do the crazy lady’s sidewalk next door. It’s not enough that she’s a crazy old lady, her tenant is a schizophrenic, apparently with a brand new bad back.

There is some sort of law about having the sidewalk shoveled within a certain amount of hours after a snow. My wife was going ape-# over this. I suggested that the Snow Police could stop by and try to ticket me. This is the same lady who believes the trash cans need to be lined up a certain way, lest the Trash Police spring into action.

Boy did I regret shoveling. No good deed ever goes unpunished.

Within a few hours, I was walking like an eighty-five year old man. This continued til late Sunday night. I was almost ready to take off work.

Of course I still faced extricating my car from the White Blight this morning.

The running joke on the news is that we’re two days out from another foot to foot and a half of snow. Again. This has stopped being funny. Or fun. Or nice. Or shovel-able.

A coworker loves this. I suggested he choke on it.

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So there it was, the ICBM-Chevrolet Land Yacht Police Car-Looking Vehicle, covered by over a foot of not so lovely white powder. It’s almost like some sort of bizarre ski report (on acid), isn’t it?

Fortunately the left side was clear, due to the occasional appearance of the sun. This left the top, side, and driver’s side street, where it got plowed in whilst the street was being `cleared’. Within about five minutes I lost sensation in my right hand. This turned out to make much more sense when I heard the news reporting a zero effective temperature due to wind chill.

Minutes later my back popped up to remind me that it was unhappy with the act of shoveling. Not that I am particularly enamored of it either, of course.

Moments after that, the wife popped up to remind me to use a broom to clear the car. There is nothing worse than a backseat shoveler.

As helpful as she was, she continued to help by suggesting ways to deal with my frozen fingers. Even more help was forthcoming, in the form of repeatedly asking me where my gloves were.

Gloves occupy a special place in our quantum universe, right next to socks. I have something like three pairs of gloves. They are always right there in the same spot all year. Right there up until the second I need them, then they go to that special place occupied by The Disappearing Sock.

Fortunately I located one glove. More fortunately, I didn’t look like Michael Jackson with a shovel (sorry, BROOM, Dear), even though I’m pretty pale, even in the snow.

With defrosters, blowers, shovels, icepicks, liquid nitrogen, and time, I finally got the car road-ready.

And I made it to work only thirty minutes late, to a complete emergency, and I was still the first member of the team on premises. Lucky me. A hunched-over MIS guy - but a hunched-over MIS guy with coffee!

I can’t wait for the next foot and a half in a day and a half.