Publish365 032: Snow Sucks
I went outside at 9:00 this morning to clear my driveway and my truck so I could go to work, hopefully tomorrow. The snow in my driveway was literally up to my waist, which was quite a surprise. I plugged in my snowblower (don’t judge me; I have an electric one) and hit the button and nothing. No motion on the blades. Holy crap I had to shovel. I sucked it up, grabbed the best shovel I own, and started digging. 2 hours later, I didn’t even finish the driveway. Holy crap.
I had to stop, though. Since my surgery in March of 2019 I have these moments where everything just hurts and I have to stop whatever I’m doing, and that happened at around 11am so I stopped, came back in the house and did some officey type stuff for work. At around 3ish, I thought ”I had better go back out and finish, otherwise this is going to suck tomorrow. I went back out and tried to work on the barrier that was blocking my truck in, but it was just too much. None of my super kind neighbors offered to help including the weirdo next door who regularly yells at people over his phone while standing on his steps in the most unimpressively non-strong voice you’ve ever heard and who has a huge gas-powered snowblower.
As I struggled with my shovel and the mountain in front of me, the owner of a local restaurant drove by and saw me. “Need help?” he said.
”Absolutely.” I pointed to the mountain in front of me and the mountain in front of my steps, and told him that was all I needed. ”$30,” he said. Of course I said yes. Ten minutes later his kids came back with a pair of shovels, a snowblower, and a small polaris with an electric plow on the front. I stopped the kid running the plow and said ”Listen, you clear my truck out, clear to my front door and I’ll give you guys $150.” His eyes lit up like I had just offered him a million dollars. He nodded and they got to work. Half an hour later I had a clear driveway, a clear truck front and back, a clear front walk, and the path to my front door was clear from one end to the other.
When it comes to snow removal I’ve always been very generous. I know it’s garbage work and I look forward to letting someone else do it. As the kids were finishing up I handed them my business card with my Venmo and phone number and told them to just have their mom do a request or give me a call and I’ll pay up. A few hours later mom sent a request and I paid immediately, I also complimented her on raising two good boys with a good work ethic.
I'm so glad I went back out today because if I didn't, I'd be screwed tomorrow instead of sitting pretty as I am right now, and I already told the boys' mom that the next time it snows they can just come here, do the same thing, and I'll just pay it. They don't have to even ask. I hope that's the kind of thing that encourages them to continue working and doing better things than their friends who, from the looks of things, were not actually out trying to earn a few bucks today. If this helps them to be the entrepreneur I'm always working on being, then I've done my job.
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