Snow Etiquette

We don't see police cruisers around our neck of the woods very often.

But if this snow doesn't go away soon, I have a sinking suspicion we're going to be witnessing a little blip in that particular statistic.

When Christmas Eve brought that big dump of snow, the neighbourhood looked like the happy ending on, "It's a Wonderful Life." People were shoveling other neighbour's walkways, men were running out of their homes at the first sound of someone's car stuck in the snow, and there were smiles and jokes and beers being enjoyed in the camaraderie of group testosterone.

Fast forward a week and a half, and, oh, about another two feet of snow.

There are no more smiles or jokes. There are a lot of "I moved here to get away from this stuff" comments, but other than that, people have stopped talking to each other. They just keep walking out of their homes each day, shoulders down, faces looking upward and cursing the sky, and then shoveling their vehicles out of their snowy graves. Again. And again. And again.

We don't live in the rich area of our municipality, so our street has seen a snow plow three times. All three times happened within a 30 minute period. Two of those times the plow wasn't down. The third time the plow took off the first 2 inches of snow. There was a guy hanging off the back of the truck using a teaspoon to sprinkle sand on the newly 'plowed' street, so that was good.

Our neighbourhood garbage truck was stuck for half an hour last night. One poor 20 year old boy was out there trying to shovel himself out. No one went to help. I think I saw him crying.

The worst of it is the parking. Parking has always been an issue in our neighbourhood. And all this snow is causing the problem to become somewhat contentious. The Husband has been out there every day, shoveling out our car and the entire surrounding area, just like so many of our neighbours.

But not all of our neighbours.

We have a household across the street that owns two vehicles and a variety of working appendages that would be quite suitable for shoveling snow. But instead of shoveling out a space for their own vehicles, they choose to park in spaces that other people, like, oh, let's say, MY HUSBAND, have shoveled clear. When they started parking in the one clear spot the Husband had made, the Husband shoveled a second spot. Now they're parking their other car in that one.

The Husband is getting a tad irritated. I don't blame him. They've seen him shoveling the areas, and they just keep parking there. There is an unwritten rule about these things.

So last night the Husband was out there, shoveling yet another parking spot for our car. They had parked their cars in both of the already Husband shoveled spots. And one of the able bodied men came out of his house and walked past the shoveling Husband. The guy walked over to his car parked in the beautifully shoveled spot and said to the Husband,

"It just keeps snowing and snowing and snowing....."

And the Husband said,

"And I just keep shoveling and shoveling and shoveling...."

This morning their four wheeled drive vehicle was parked in a snow covered spot.

Hopefully the police cars have been averted.