Me VS Mother Nature: The Snow Shovel.
Because of the weather, I am carrying a snow shovel around with me as I car jockey. I dig the cars out, I take them to Tremblay, I dig them back into their home spots if they have been abandoned somewhere.
I have to say, carrying a snow shovel totally trumps a dog as a conversation starter. So many people said, “Hey, you digging your way out?” and “You want to come do my car?” and “That’s a hell of a shovel you have there” to me today. Of course, you don’t always expect a woman with a snow shovel on the bus. It looks a little weird, and I did get a few bemused smiles.
But I have to say, trooping down Lonsdale with the sleet in my face, snow shovel over my shoulder, I felt like the hero in an apocalyptic movie. I sort of wished someone would say something to me just then, because for sure I could have said something flinty and laconic. In retrospect, I probably just looked insane.
Oh well. It’s not the first time and it won’t be the last.
Some Stuff | Liz December 29, 2008
By Beth, December 30, 2008 @ 8:54 am
Carrying an AK 47 would have looked insane. A snow shovel would look efficient.And super-heroic.
By rachel, December 30, 2008 @ 9:39 am
Or maybe they’d just never seen one up close before…
(Sorry. I just don’t understand why sidewalks don’t get shoveled here. Where are the gangs of enterprising children? A homeless dude who begged, borrowed, or stole a snow shovel could’ve been in steak dinners for a week. I was tempted to buy a shovel myself and just go renegade-shoveler on the city’s ass.)
(Also, I will be really amused if it snows a lot during the Olympics and the whole city shuts down. Really, really amused.)
By Liz, December 30, 2008 @ 9:16 pm
I so felt like a hero, Beth.
Rachel, the thing is, we are used to the Vancouver snow where it melts before you can shovel it. This has been unpleasant on many levels, this snow that won’t go. And somehow in our mammalian hive-minds, we can’t seem to learn that this snow is different. Even though it is annoying the hell out of us.
By elswhere, December 30, 2008 @ 11:07 pm
The guy across the street from me is an intrepid shoveler and shoveled out his whole gigantic driveway and a big chunk of our street, and then started on the driveway next door. Maybe he’s a fluke?
By Liz, December 31, 2008 @ 9:43 am
He might be a fluke, but he also might be more evolved than those of us who don’t learn.
By rachel, December 31, 2008 @ 11:39 am
In a burst of bitter, bitter irony, the shoveled portions of the sidewalks are covered with a layer of slick ice this morning, and are much harder to walk on today than the unshoveled portions.
By Duncan, December 31, 2008 @ 1:26 pm
They could be all “Oh thank God you’re here.” and you could be all Clint Eastwood and you could say “Can you dig it?”
By cheesefairy, January 1, 2009 @ 8:01 pm
els I think that guy was my dad. He almost shoveled his whole alley, along with his neighbours who were ashamed to see a 74 year old man doing their work.
MP, I love the image of you walking up the street in the sleet with the shovel. I want a tshirt of it, actually.
maybe we could sell them to raise money for another snow plow?
By Liz, January 1, 2009 @ 9:30 pm
Rachel, there is more irony forecast fir tonight, apparently.
Duncan, I totally would.
Cheesefairy, I’d like it to be a more made-up version on the T-shirt, please. Less red face and nose.
By elswhere, January 2, 2009 @ 12:31 am
cheesefairy—I wouldn’t be surprised, except no way this guy is 74. Apparently it is a neighborhood full of intrepid shovelers, though. Or at least two of them.