Snow Trekkin'

[bloodyrosemccoy]

Well! This year’s edition of the Annual Holiday Disaster has come early!

 

Everything was going fine until yesterday at about 1:45 pm, when about 4 more inches of snow slammed into the ground with an audible WHUD. The various members of the Treehouse family had been out doing errands, but seeing signs of a classic Mountain Passes Closing scenario, we all decided to regroup and head for home.  The last to get back was Mom, who had elected to stop by the liquor store first.

 

MOM: I figure if we get snowed in for days, we will at least have the essentials. I got rum, gin, and vodka.

DAD: Gin?  What, were you going to mix us up some nice gin and tonics?  “Oh, that snow shoveling looks like thirsty work! Come sit on the porch and have an ice cold G&T!”

MOM: (with dignity) I was thinking for martinis.

 

So we pretty much cancelled the rest of the day. I called in to work, and we spent the evening reading, playing video games, and talking before watching a nice comfy Christmas movie* by the glow of our ugly bubble-lighted tree. Then Dad and my brother went out to take one last look to see if the snow was still on the offensive.

 

A moment later, my sister answered the phone. It was Dad.

 

MY SISTER: How’s it looking out there?

DAD: Actually, the snow has cleared up!  And the river and waterfall look particularly lovely under the streetlight!

MY SISTER: Dad, we do not live near a river or a waterfall.

DAD: We do now! The water main on the next street up broke.

MY SISTER: … We’ll get our boots.

 

By the time we got out there, Dad and my brother had built a barricade of snow and bricks in our driveway, which happens to be facing the bottom of the hill the water was running down. They had moved on to getting shouted at by Mrs. Next-Door-Left, who was taking her shouting job very seriously: “OUR HOUSE IS FLOODING OVER HERE! QUIT SHOVELING THE WATER IN OUR DIRECTION! I CALLED THE WATER PEOPLE BUT NO ONE ANSWERED!”

 

We decided that we had to unblock the gutter and get the water flowing—while the drawback to living under the water main was that water flows downhill, that became a plus when we realized we also live on what I will describe as, for lack of a better term, a freaking mountain. My brother and I also decided to wake up the Next-Door-Rights, in order to let them know that their driveway and garage were becoming a lake. Unfortunately, Mr. Next-Door-Right isn’t particularly enthusiastic, so his entire contribution to the project was five minutes’ shoveling snow into his Next-Door-Right’s yard, declaring a job well done, and wandering back inside.**

 

Meanwhile, the water guy and the snow plow had both come.  The water guy proceeded to hold his map upside-down, while Mr. Plow industriously plowed all the slush we had just shoveled out of the gutter back into it and blocked up the water flow again.

 

And chaos reigned.

 

“Curse you, plow! I JUST SHOVELED THAT!”

 “Goddamn, these boots are ruined!”

“We can’t let it flow too fast, or it just pulls in more slush and blocks up!”

“Don’t slow it down too much, or it’ll freeze and block up!”

“Hey, Next-Door-Rights? You want to maybe help out here?”

“QUIT SHOVELING INTO OUR DRIVEWAY! YOU IN THE TRUCK WITH THE ORANGE LIGHTS, SHUT THE WATER OFF! WE’RE FLOODING HERE!”

“All right, it’s in the next guy’s yard. I’m off to bed!”

“Holy shit the plow is coming back! And we just got this slush cleared from his last pass!”

“FLOODING!”

“We should probably clear the Next-Door-Rights’ gutter.  It seems to be pooling here for some reason.”

“Don’t let it go too fast!”

“Or slow!”

“Have they shut the water off?”

“THERE’S KLINGONS ON THE STARBOARD BOW, STARBOARD BOW, STARBOARD BOW, JIM!”

 

“You know,” I remarked to my brother as we went around for the third de-slushing of the Next-Door-Rights, “after all this, Mom had sure better be waiting inside with some ice cold gin and tonics.”

 

“Perhaps without the tonic,” he agreed.

 

After the fourth round along their gutter, it was flowing without obstruction pretty well, and we judged the flow was slowing down, so they must have turned it off.  Mr. Plow had given up, and Mrs. Next-Door-Left’s voice gave out.  Now all there was to do was keep an eye on the water level, and check tomorrow to see if we would need a plow or just a Zamboni for the street.

 

And, of course, go inside and get a nice hot cup of “Russian tea.”***  It was better than any gin and tonic. Or, at least, warmer.

 

 

*The Dark Knight.

 

**He doesn’t like that neighbor.

 

***A gross recipe featuring a mix of Lipton instant tea, Tang, sugar, spices, and peach Schnapps.