‘Tis the season. No not Christmas, necessarily - winter. And snow. It’s
no secret I don’t like the stuff. (As a truck driver, it greatly inhibits my
efforts to make a living in a timely fashion, potentially turning my day from
what is normally thirteen hours into sixteen, eighteen, or twenty. You can see
how difficult it would be to work a full week with those kind of hours. The DOT
sort of frowns on driving that long). I didn’t even like snow as a kid. But, at
one time, I did think I could maybe make a profit off it.
The winter I was twelve, I got the grand idea to make some money by
shoveling snow. I was going to be rich! I figured all the neighbors would jump
at the chance to have the snow removed from their sidewalks and driveway.
The first snowfall of the season, I took my dad’s shovel and walked
around the neighborhood, knocking on doors. A lot of doors. And got no
favorable response whatsoever. It seems no one wanted to pay me a measly five
dollars to shovel two inches of snow for them. Who knew?
The next time it snowed, I tried again. This time there was a little
more of the white stuff (maybe four inches) and I hoped my luck would improve.
It did! I actually got a lady up the street to let me shovel off her driveway.
And yes, she did pay me! But that was the only one.
So, I gave up. If no one wanted my help, then I wasn’t going to ask
them any more.
Then came the big snow. In three days, during which it never stopped
snowing, we got several feet! Enough that cars were buried, roofs were caving
in, and driveways were completely gone.
That’s when I learned that my neighbors were more than willing to
change their minds. Several of them solicited my services. But, that’s also the
day my neighbors learned that I wasn’t as dumb as they thought - I declined the
offers - even from the guy who said he’d pay me double. Ten dollars! I wasn’t
even tempted.
That could have something to do with the fact that I was busy.
Shoveling snow. All day. Apparently, my dad thought shoveling snow was a great
idea for me - and my brother. And it didn’t seem to matter that I no longer
wanted to do it. He just said something about, ‘tis the season. He did help us
and by the end of the day, we had most of it removed. But, by the end of the
day, I had decided I never wanted to shovel snow again! In fact, I never wanted
to see snow again!
Yet, just last weekend, there I was, shoveling my driveway. And
thinking, “Yep, ‘tis the season.”
Merry Christmas!
No comments:
Post a Comment