“Well, we are witnessing the downfall of society,” said my Gentleman Friend, as he kicked off his boots next to the front door and brushed snow out of his hair.
Sometimes I’m not sure if he’s being funny or overly dramatic. So I wait.
Returning from his first snow-removal trek of the season, he shook his head mournfully as he reported on the slipshod work of some others on our block. “Why would someone plow out their own driveway and walkway, but not the sidewalk in front of their house where everyone else walks?” I shake my head sympathetically, understanding that this is a rhetorical question only.
This theme continued through the next few days, as he witnessed countless infractions against what he considers Snowplow Etiquette. “Why would a dude plow his driveway and blow the extra snow directly onto his neighbor’s driveway? Or onto the street?” Again, I only shake my head. “And why,” he continues, “do people stop sharply at their own property lines instead of just continuing on a few feet to help a neighbor?”
I don’t have answers for any of these questions, but I hope it isn’t, as he conjectures, the Downfall of Society. That would be grim indeed. But maybe he has a valid point. Maybe the ignorance of snowblowing etiquette isn’t everything, but it could be a clear indicator of a general lack of attention that plagues humanity.
I have written before about my husband’s love of his snowblower. He is, by nature, an earth-mover. He gardens, unafraid of transplanting large bushes or small trees. He cleans the garage by removing everything and placing it back in order. He sets up and tears down, moves furniture, builds, and fixes things. The guy is not afraid of hard work and a little chaos, especially if it means more order in the end.
During a heavy snowfall, his eyes have an unmistakable gleam. My theory is that his boyhood memories of receiving warm-from-the-oven cookies as payment from the kind grandmotherly types in his neighborhood has created a Pavlovian response for him. The muted sound of a freshly fallen snow cut through by the scraping of shovels and the whir of snowblowers quickens his pulse, and he’s out the door into the swirling white morning before even heating up the coffee pot.
Shortly after my husband put the old snowblower out to pasture due to an oil leak, our city announced they would be doing major reconstruction on our street corner — resulting in 50 additional feet added to our driveway. All summer, as the construction neared completion, we joked that we’d better replace our snowblower, or hope for a very, very mild winter.
But before our calendars even flipped to December, we had several inches of snow transform our neighborhood into a wonderland. Not a minute was wasted: he came home like a proud papa with a brand-spankin’-new Toro electric snowblower with rechargeable battery.
How much snow will we get this winter? How many complaints will I hear from my husband, the earth-mover, after he returns from clearing snow to recharge his battery? These are all rhetorical questions, of course. Will I survive being married to the Emily Post of snowblowing? Can a single man become a snowblowing influencer with his attention-to-detail approach, thus buoying up humanity from its imminent downfall?
