Living in a Winter Wasteland

Okay, that's probably over-exaggerating it a bit. Maybe a lot. I've actually had a great attitude about the wintery storm and the aftermath. You could even say that I've had a great sense of humor.

We live in a cul de sac, which means that our section of the street is far down on the list when it comes to being plowed. In fact, it was just yesterday, probably at the request of the Dayton Public Schools, that someone finally came and plowed our street, five days after the storm hit. We've had some fun moments getting cars unstuck as we've turned into our street, which reminds me of a funny story that happened a few days ago:

Our driveway is on an incline, and, unless we keep it salted, it can be difficult, once we've taken the car out of the garage, to get it back up in the garage. We've discovered that, if we come down the street at enough speed, we'll have enough momentum to take the car up the hill. Naturally, there have been a few moments over the last couple of days that we've had to leave the car parked at the bottom of the driveway.

But it takes a lot for me to back down. Well, maybe not that much. On Monday I really wanted our car to get into the garage for some reason. I probably didn't want to have to deal with scraping snow or ice off the car - something stupid and trivial like that. Jennie had just come home from work and, after a brief struggle to get the car up the driveway, she parked it at the bottom. Let me have a go at it, I thought.

"Man is the only animal that blushes -- or needs to." -- Mark Twain

So, while she, Mom, and Keisha were inside the nice, warm house, I took up the gauntlet. I hoppe in the car, put it in reverse and headed down to Hillcrest, the major road that is only about 500 feet from our house. I turned right and head down a few blocks. Noticing that there wasn't much traffic in either direction, I decided to pull a stunt. I yanked the emergency brake and turned the car left so that it could spin around quickly, which it did.

Then, Mr. Stuntdriver, took off, heading back toward our street. I paused to let oncoming traffic pass, and then I gunned it and made the left turn onto our snow/ice/slush-covered street, and the car immediately slid over, getting stuck on the side of the road. No problem, I thought. We only live 500 feet away, so I turned the car off and ran - if that's what you call trudging in winter boots and the slush/ice/snow mix - back home to get our shovel, hoping that Mom and Jennie didn't notice me.

Too late. They'd already noticed me pulling the car away from the driveway moments before. "No, I don't need any help. I've got it under control. Thanks!" Mr. Prideful said. I "ran" back to the car and began digging out around it.

A few minutes later, some neighbors drove by, and seeing the predicament I'd gotten myself into, got out to help. I got in the car while they tried to push the car out of the way. No luck at first.

Well, then, I look toward our house, and I see Jennie and Mom, now dressed up in their winter coats, heading my way. Mom thought she was going to help push. Yeah, right. If there is a gene for pridefulness, I may have inherited it from her. Mom, with fibro myalgia and other back problems. Four foot eleven inches Mom. I appreciated her heart and desire to help, but I didn't want her to jeopardize her own health in the process. She made a good supervisor anyhow.

Jennie climbed into the car and, combined with our neigbors pushing and me wielding the snow shovel, she was able to drive the car out of where it was stuck. Then she drove it back to the bottom of the driveway, where it was before.

It was good exercise and helped to relieve the boredom, though.