Considering how much snow the average Canadian sees in a lifetime, some of us have no fucking clue how to deal with it.
Like my neighbours, for example. A nor’easter hit a couple of days ago, dumping around 45cm of snow on the city. By the time the plows had gone by, there was about a three foot berm at the end of every driveway.
By late morning, the snow had stopped, and the neighbourhood was awash with the growl of snowblowers, and a flurry of shovels flung snow off driveways and front steps. It was into this aftermath that my neighbours, who must have been away overnight, pulled up in front of their house. They sat in the middle of the road for a good 30 seconds before driving away, I assumed to park on the street until they’d cleared their driveway. I was doing dishes at the time, so wasn’t paying close attention – not until they suddenly came screaming back into view at top speed and drove straight into the snowbank at the end of the driveway. I’m sure they figured that if they just built up enough speed, they’d break through.
They were wrong. Instead, they came to an abrupt stop, the thump clearly audible even inside the house.
It was glorious.
Sadly I didn’t get a video of it. What I did do was run outside to get Ron, who was by this point finished shovelling our driveway and had moved onto the deck. I knew he couldn’t see what was going on. I also knew he’d hate to miss the show.
And the show was just getting started. First one of them channelled his inner Hulk by trying to lift the car off the snowbank, while the other tried to kick his way out their predicament.
Neither technique worked. Next, the driver left the car in gear and got out to help push. I have never seen a group of people manage to so effectively not work together in my life.
Shockingly, this also had no effect. So they broke out the big guns.
I really have to wonder what the company owner would think of this unorthodox use of company gear. It did, however, do the trick, as it shifted the car far enough that the driver was finally able to back out into the street. Oh, and I should note – the massive dent in the car door was there long before this drama began.
So now that they’re free, one would expect them to have learned their lesson and shovel the driveway, yes?
No.
Not unless you call this shovelling.
Some people just shouldn’t own cars.
The View From the Handbasket 
Ha!
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Snowblowers. For any of the recent storms here in Virginia, a snowblower would have done absolutely no good at all. To be able to blow snow, you need it to be cold and stay cold, so that the snow is fluffy enough to move. Here, we often get storms when we are right on the edge of freezing. So we often get heavy wet glop, followed by ice and sleet, followed by more glop. It gets just warm enough in the daytime to melt it all into a nasty slush, that then freezes up overnight. You can’t really blow it, you can barely shovel it. A chisel might help. Salt is a good weapon, but often we just have to shut everything down and stay home. We have more glop coming in tonight.
Your neighbors are hilarious!
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Ah, yes, the mid-storm ice and sleet! Used to have to deal with that a lot in Ontario, but it’s not nearly so common here. We do get the melt-and-freeze cycle a lot, though, which is why most people are diligent about shovelling as soon as they can when the storm is over. Nobody wants to be walking over that for the rest of the winter. Stay safe and snug during tonight’s storm!
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