I Believe in Father Christmas in General

I Believe in Father Christmas

Strange to think that the snow we got in the last 12 hours would have completely shut down vast swaths of the south. It started at midnight, and kept up all night. I was a little surprised because I was expecting more rain than snow. You know, because that ocean right over there has a tendency to keep things a bit warmer in this part of the world.

We got a little over 6 inches. Official reading was 6.5 inches. Hard to say here.

By the time I went out to clear the drive at 10AM it had started raining. I was worried it was going to go to slush then re-freeze. I was prudent to clear.

I have a monster snow blower. I bought it when I had a substantially larger driveway. But what the fuck, I own it. Why wouldn’t I use it? The guy across the street gave me the stink eye as he was digging tons of slush out of his drive. Twenty minutes and I was backing the snow beast back into my garage.

I used to try to help the neighbors, especially during bad storms. Living in an apartment complex broke me of that habit quite quick. A couple of years ago I had just finished clearing my drive in the middle of a blizzard, and was backing the machine back into its parking spot.

Snow blowers don’t really do the job, so I was scraping residual. Wrapped up like a mummy because it was well below zero and the wind was blowing a steady 30 knots out of the north and gusting to fifty.

The woman across the street came out, jumped in her car and tried to back out and was promptly stuck in the berm at the end of the driveway. Me and a couple of neighbors went over and pushed her car out of the berm. Then I fired up my snow machine up again and cleared the berm.

She came back out of her apartment, got in her car. Honked at me as I was walking the blower back across the street. Not in an acknowledgment, but because I was in her way.

Not so much as a thank you. I haven’t been back across the street.

I was tempted today. But that is what society is becoming. Too many people just expect someone else to fix it.

I’ll fix it, but you are going to have to say please and thank you.

I backed out of the drive late this afternoon. It was already dark. As I waited for the garage door to close I hit the “on” button for the iPod. And ELP’s “I believe in Father Christmas” came on. I know it isn’t really a Christmas song, but I looked around at all the Christmas lights in the neighborhood and thought that fucking iPod did it again.

We have three more storms stacked up.

Before Christmas I will probably find myself clearing some neighbors drives. And not really expect a thank you. Just because.