A Bad Day in Syracuse

Today was a bad day… and it’s only 9:42 in the morning. Well the bad day started last night. No, actually it started seven years ago when I moved into this house and decided NOT to invest in a snow blower. I do enjoy shoveling and I have a short driveway, so how bad could it get? I figured the exercise would do me good. After pushing, lifting and throwing that snow for four years with a mediocre shovel, I’d had enough! I decided to buy a snow blower with my next door neighbor. It was a dark and snowy night….. I was at the end of rope and the end of my driveway, the crusty part that the snow plow blessed me with. To be fair, I wasn’t thinking clearly. I was tired, my nose hairs were frozen and I had no feeling in my fingers. My neighbor stopped in his truck at the end of my driveway. Before he had an opportunity to say a word I spoke, “I am done with this snow. Do you want to go in with me on a snow blower and we can share it?” He agreed. I tossed the shovel into the four foot snow bank and climbed into his truck. Off we went to Sears. I was thinking of getting a small machine. Just one that will do the job. I never go for the bells and whistles. I’m sort of a no nonsense gal. He, on the other hand was like a kid in a candy shop. He tinkered with each machine, pulled all the handles, turned every switch and told me it would be a good idea to get the biggest one they had. I thought that was a bad idea. I’m only 5’2″ tall and that machine looked like a monster to me. We bought it anyway. Once home he was thrilled with his Man Machine. Unfortunately I couldn’t even move the thing. It was too big, too heavy and too powerful for me. So being the good neighbor he was, he just snow blowed my driveway for me and kept the mean machine at his house. Last summer he felt guilty and paid for my driveway to be resealed in trade for my half of the snow blower. Now it belonged to him, lock, stock and blower.
He still blows out my driveway but sometimes it’s not till nine o’clock at night or whenever he gets around to it. (One time he accidentally ran over my Christmas lights and pulled down every light off the house and the three bushes in front of the house along with the top half of my Christmas tree that he sucked off the porch like a wood chipper..but that is a whole other issue.) This means that I can’t get out of the driveway to go run my errands or get to the airport in time to catch a flight. Which is what happened earlier this month. I got stuck at the bottom of the driveway and had to call a cab to get me to the airport. $40 to get me there and $40 to get me back. I was not happy.
We have had non-stop snow for about two weeks now and every bone in my little body is weeping. Yesterday I went to Home Depot and bought the snow blower I should have purchased seven years ago. Last night I used it to clear my driveway. It was very hard to push and maneuver but I did manage to get the driveway done. I think I may have had the break on- it was dark I couldn’t see. This morning however I couldn’t move my arms and the pain in my shoulder is..well that’s not important. What’s important is that this morning we had another foot of snow. But I had a brand spanking new snow blower so all was right with the world. Until I tried to start it. Would you believe I could not get the thing to start? I was livid. I tried about five times and then reverted to the shovel. I had to take my car for repair at 8:00 a.m. I got up at six to be sure I had enough time to do the driveway and get there on time but after fooling with the blower and then having to shovel my way out, I was really late. I just tossed my computer into my bag and out the door I went, no make up, hair a mess, an old pair of jeans, wet from the snow and the sweatshirt that was on the floor from yesterday. I got to the garage about 10 minutes late looking like a rag and feeling frustrated, but I got there.
The man at the counter seemed irritated that I was there. I told him I had an appointment at eight and apologized for being late. He never smiled. He just clicked away at the computer and asked me a few questions about the car. In my head I was thinking, “You are treating me this way because I look like a rag! That is ‘ugly discrimination’. If only you knew what I went through to get here.” I was really ticked off. Then a man walked in and the same clerk was nice to him, smiled at him and even joked with him. How rude. He was totally mean to me just because I looked so bad. If only he knew what a hottie I was when I’m cleaned up! Jerk.                                                                                            I went into the waiting room and called my daughter to complain. After my phone call I went out and asked the clerk how long he thought it was going to be. He told me it would be several hours and offered to take me down the street to Barnes and Noble. I looked at him. “You would do that for me?” He said, “Sure, you don’t want to wait around here.” And then he smiled. Great. Not only did I suffer seven years struggling with the snow and then the snow blower, now he’s gotta prove me wrong and be a nice guy! I can’t win.