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Sunday, December 30, 2007
The Uber-Chick goes a little bit guy.....
8:45 PM | 
Posted by
Christine
Okay, I will admit I have a few little OCD tendencies. My toenails must always be perfectly painted, I must always have lipstick close at hand, no one sees my house unless it is super clean, and my underwear almost always match what I am wearing.
Oh, and one other thing.
In the winter, my driveway is always immaculately shoveled.
Yes, even I go a little bit guy now and then.
I think it may be an illness of mine, and I believe I can even pinpoint the root of it. It stems from an unholy loathing of he whom I have deemed, "the god damned plow guy".
You see, I live in a townhome development. Every month, I pay a ridiculous amount of money to keep my lawn mowed, the pool staffed, and the driveways plowed. Really, I'm not sure what they do with all of the money, but it obviously isn't used to hire the most skilled of laborers to maintain my property. I'm starting to think that someone must be getting inordinately rich off of my assessment. Either that, or they are complete frickin morons.
The first winter I lived here, I was so naive and excited about the prospect of having someone plow my driveway. "How wonderful!" I thought. "All I'll ever have to do is shovel the sidewalk. This is beautiful."
Until the god damned plow guy came.
And kept the blade about 3 inches off the ground, packing everything down into one big sheet of ice.....until he got to my garage, where he pushed a bank (I kid you not) two feet tall against the door.
How could this be? Why is it that I now have to spend twice as long shoveling to chip away at the glacier that has inhabited my pavement? Is there no hope for humanity?
I called and complained. I was told they'd do better the next time.
So the next time? A repeat performance, with one exception. He also plowed about 10 square feet of grass in the corner of my yard against the garage door. It took until July for the lawn to grow back properly.
I called again. The nice lady apologized, and said they do their best, and she'd pass on the information.
They skipped my whole street the next time it snowed. Half of me was perturbed. The other half delighted in the fact that it only took me a half hour to clean my driveway.
I even salted, so it would look extra-nice.
Since then, it has become an obsession. If I know it's going to snow at night, I set my alarm super-early for the morning. It has become a race - I must get out there before the god damned plow guy arrives. If it's clean before he shows up, he leaves me alone.
Somehow in all of this, my neighbors stopped caring, and it drives me bat-shit crazy that they never lift a single shovel. One year, I even did their driveway several times, just because it looked so horrible. After all, how can anybody LIVE with that mess?? Their driveways are complete wastelands until a good thaw comes, and they slide like penguins toward the curb every time they go for the mail. They have given up the good fight. They have surrendered to the god damned plow guy.
Not I. It has become my mission to keep my driveway cleaner than the sidewalk at the old folks' home. Whether it snows a half an inch or a foot, I am out there, zealously shoveling, salting, and shaking my fist at the sound of the approaching plow. The lady next door actually said to me one day, "Gee, I wish my husband shoveled my driveway as well as you do yours!"
"Poke him," I said. "Or the god damned plow guy. Which ever makes you feel better."
Oh, and god damned plow guy? If I ever find out who you are, I'm calling your mother.
Then I'm going to have my kid come kick the crap out of you. He'll do it, if he believes it will get him out of shoveling just once.
Oh, and one other thing.
In the winter, my driveway is always immaculately shoveled.
Yes, even I go a little bit guy now and then.
I think it may be an illness of mine, and I believe I can even pinpoint the root of it. It stems from an unholy loathing of he whom I have deemed, "the god damned plow guy".
You see, I live in a townhome development. Every month, I pay a ridiculous amount of money to keep my lawn mowed, the pool staffed, and the driveways plowed. Really, I'm not sure what they do with all of the money, but it obviously isn't used to hire the most skilled of laborers to maintain my property. I'm starting to think that someone must be getting inordinately rich off of my assessment. Either that, or they are complete frickin morons.
The first winter I lived here, I was so naive and excited about the prospect of having someone plow my driveway. "How wonderful!" I thought. "All I'll ever have to do is shovel the sidewalk. This is beautiful."
Until the god damned plow guy came.
And kept the blade about 3 inches off the ground, packing everything down into one big sheet of ice.....until he got to my garage, where he pushed a bank (I kid you not) two feet tall against the door.
How could this be? Why is it that I now have to spend twice as long shoveling to chip away at the glacier that has inhabited my pavement? Is there no hope for humanity?
I called and complained. I was told they'd do better the next time.
So the next time? A repeat performance, with one exception. He also plowed about 10 square feet of grass in the corner of my yard against the garage door. It took until July for the lawn to grow back properly.
I called again. The nice lady apologized, and said they do their best, and she'd pass on the information.
They skipped my whole street the next time it snowed. Half of me was perturbed. The other half delighted in the fact that it only took me a half hour to clean my driveway.
I even salted, so it would look extra-nice.
Since then, it has become an obsession. If I know it's going to snow at night, I set my alarm super-early for the morning. It has become a race - I must get out there before the god damned plow guy arrives. If it's clean before he shows up, he leaves me alone.
Somehow in all of this, my neighbors stopped caring, and it drives me bat-shit crazy that they never lift a single shovel. One year, I even did their driveway several times, just because it looked so horrible. After all, how can anybody LIVE with that mess?? Their driveways are complete wastelands until a good thaw comes, and they slide like penguins toward the curb every time they go for the mail. They have given up the good fight. They have surrendered to the god damned plow guy.
Not I. It has become my mission to keep my driveway cleaner than the sidewalk at the old folks' home. Whether it snows a half an inch or a foot, I am out there, zealously shoveling, salting, and shaking my fist at the sound of the approaching plow. The lady next door actually said to me one day, "Gee, I wish my husband shoveled my driveway as well as you do yours!"
"Poke him," I said. "Or the god damned plow guy. Which ever makes you feel better."
Oh, and god damned plow guy? If I ever find out who you are, I'm calling your mother.
Then I'm going to have my kid come kick the crap out of you. He'll do it, if he believes it will get him out of shoveling just once.
5 comments:
My foe is the newspaper delivery person. On snowy days, they drive up all the way my driveway to get the paper on the porch. This is nice, except now there are the dreaded tire tracks on the driveway that are so smashed down, it is impossible to clear off all the driveway.
Complaining is useless.
I feel your pain. What's a good OCD person to do?
Maybe I just need to turn into my grandpa. He put little wooden stakes at either end of the driveway, and runs a string between them with little red plastic ties every few feet. It's his way of keeping people off the pavement whenever he seals it (which I think is probably twice a year).
Knowing my god damned plow guy, though, he'd drive right through and plant the stake in my heart.
I recommend one pass with the shovel, a good salting, and then a return about a half hour later.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go turn in my chick card.
When we were up in Massachusetts, one of the few things we had to cover in our rented house (the Second Floor of Doom) was snow removal and lawn care.
My first year, we had precisely one snowfall worth shoveling, and that was only 8".
The second year, we had THREE 20-inch-plus snowstorms. We soon figured out how to cram both our cars into the driveway in such a way that shoveling was tremendously reduced.
Our foe here in Cincinnati is Rumpke Recycling, who has picked up our recycling exactly twice in three months.
WF
Midnight update:
Bah. The boy and I arrived home at 10:30 to discover the inch of snow they predicted magically turned into five.
I was tempted to go out there with a shovel after ringing in the new year, but was advised that the neighbors might think I'm mildly snowtarded.
Bastards.
I'm posting the boy at his bedroom window with a marshmallow gun and telling him to channel "Call of Duty" until dawn.
lmao
I too have a hate for the god damned plow guy in my neck of the woods...
I swear he waits around the corner until I've finished shoveling then revs up that big plow and dumps eleventy seven streets worth of snow in MY driveway.
There's a hit out on some of 'em I hear...