We now have snow

Snow seems to break down society in the same manner that Y2K was supposed to and 9-11 nearly did. If it's severe enough they shut everything down. At one point this past week that is exactly what they did.

For more than half of a week they had shut down schools, county's and most of the RV industry. My work did not however shut down at all. Just like when I was in High School and no matter how bad the weather was it would never be closed.

I was able to drive my cavalier to work on some of those days (other days I was able to take the 4wd GMC Jimmy my wife normally drives to work) so I was hard to convince that we needed to shut down whole cities. It was so easy to traverse the mounds of snow I had neglectfully failed to remove from my driveway, with the Jimmy. Four wheel drive Hi and Lo gear are like heaven.

When we bought the vehicle and found out how lousy in comparison to the Cavalier the gas mileage was going to be on my much longer commute, we determined Keely should have to drive it on her ten minutes to work instead. At the same moment I decided I would never shovel the driveway again. There simply wasn't any need. I was driving the car that would have a problem getting out, and as a man I was sure I could handle it at anytime of day or night with little problems. She was driving the car that had the power and ability to climb mountains of Eco-freaks. No more shoveling.

I know this winter, the late starter that it was, has become the worst we've had since we lived in this house. I noticed more clearly this fact when my cavalier, the front wheel drive winter warrior, became stuck at the front edge of my driveway where the city plows had sealed it off. Luckily I was on my way home from work and this wasn't going to be a real problem. I didn't have any evening plans. I could just dig myself out all afternoon. For the next forty five minutes Keely drove (read: held steering wheel and pushed the accelerator to the floor until it violently sputtered fluids from both ends) while I pushed the little car. It became stuck about seven times down the driveway. Maybe it was a storm worthy of shutting the city down.

[This is my story so I'll tell it the way I think it goes]
[even though Keely corrected me when I was retelling it to Joe the other day on the phone]

Shelly's brother's neighbor threw his snow blower across his garage in bitter anger at the machine's recent inability to do it's job. Something had fallen off and this neighbor walked the machine over to his trash pile, sat the machine down and turned his back on it forever. He went out to buy a new one and Shelly's brother went out and picked up the broken one. He took it to his father who fixed it. Just in time for me to borrow it.

When I first asked to borrow it I thought and kept thinking until I was done using it that it belonged to Shelly. I had no problem borrowing it from her, I would never have asked to borrow it from her dad. In the same way I would never criticize something her father owned but I have no problem revealing the downfalls of things that she may have bought. Normally I hold the value of FREE above the insane urge to insult the short comings of tools that do not work to my expectations. However we must proceed...

It was a 3hp Murray. From recent dealings with the Murry snow blower we have at work I knew that the company had been bought out and then shut down. I can only assume that there were issues of quality somewhere involved. This one was so small in comparison to the monster we have at work. This one you had to push, it didn't have a drive axle. It removed almost all the loose snow we had from the driveway. The packed down snow it couldn't touch though. My car still won't be able to come back into the driveway for a while. The weight of my car will undermine the stable layer of packed down snow and easily become stuck again.

Had I the money and it was earlier (or later for sales purposes) I would want to go out and buy a Snow blower that could handle the beast of a driveway I have. Even if I had to pay $300.00+ just to own a machine that would more than likely never be used.

I feel very strongly that when you have to buy something like that, it works more like a demonic charm. It would more likely keep the climate warmer and stop it from ever snowing again, for the simple fact that I would have put out that money for nothing. I'm one step ahead of this, because I have come to terms with it. I don't want to shovel, so if I buy a snow blower that stops it from snowing, in the end I have truly won! Until I find the deal or cash that I'm looking for it's gonna be a long winter.