12/25/14 – Had a white Christmas for the first time in 10
years today. And not just a dusting – four inches. We were all pretty excited,
but it will definitely wreak havoc for those traveling over the next couple of
days. Glad we didn’t go anywhere this year. Spent the day opening presents and
sledding in the backyard.
1/5/15 – Well, today was supposed to be the first day back
at school after Winter Break, but we got another round of snow and ice over the
weekend, so the roads were too dangerous for the buses. I don’t expect school
to be open tomorrow or Wednesday either, given the temperatures aren’t going to
even hit 20. The ice on the road will be around for a while. The snow was nice
over Christmas, but I think everybody’s ready for things to get back to normal.
J
1/8/15 – Talked to my sister today. She’s jealous of all the
snow we’ve had. Says she “misses the seasons” being in Florida. I told her I
haven’t been outside in three days due to the cold, and that my lips are split
so bad they bleed whenever I open my mouth wide enough to yawn. She asked me to
put some snow in the freezer so she could throw a snowball when she comes up to
visit. It’s not a bad idea, but I think I’m going to drop it down her back
while she sleeps.
1/11/15 – Wow, this just will not end. The kids have been
out of school for three weeks and they are about to go on four, thanks to
another blast of winter weather we’re supposed to get in the middle of the
night. The weatherman said this latest storm is coming down from Canada and
it’s known as a White Cap Nor’easter. Sounds bad, although I’m not sure how
much worse it can get.
1/23/15 – I have shoveled snow four hours a day for 18
consecutive days. My skin is so dry and itchy, I’ve been sharpening the kitchen
knives on my thighs. Going back to Christmas break, school has been closed for
more than a month, but with the sun coming out and the temperatures hitting the
40s the next two days, it looks like it will finally be open again on Monday.
Thank God!
1/26/15 – Son of a bitch! So this morning we got hit with
what the weatherman called, I shit you not, a ‘Minnesota Ball Buster.’ I swear
he made that up, but I don’t think his bosses care anymore. This sucks. I
really thought we were out of the woods with the nice weekend we had.
1/31/15 – My sister sent me a text asking for a picture of
the kids in their snow gear because apparently that’s “so adorable.” Instead I
sent her a picture of our latest heating bill, which is $150 higher than what it usually averages
this time of year. She texted back a crooked smiley-faced emoticon. As if that
somehow represented my initial reaction upon seeing that my heating bill is
$150 more than usual. I hope Florida gets hit with a lot more hurricanes than
normal this year, like 30 or 40.
2/2/15 – Punxsutawney Phil came out of his hole this morning
and saw his shadow, but before he could run back in, he was blown to pieces
with a 12-gauge shotgun. The man dropped the weapon and immediately surrendered
to police. The local Punxsutawney newscast said it was only the 5th
most gruesome Groundhog’s Day celebration in the town’s history. Huh.
2/6/15 – The roads are so treacherous that a plow skidded
off the road and overturned in our neighborhood yesterday. No one from the plow
company would come pick up the driver and no tow companies would risk getting
out in the conditions to pull the truck upright. So I offered to let the driver
stay with us, since we certainly can’t drive him anywhere. He slept on the
couch, which was fine, I guess. Today was a different story, though. He only
has one good eye, which he’s been using to ogle my wife. Pretty sure he’d ogle
her with the other eye too, if he still had it. He says he lost it in a
wolverine fight. I don’t know what that means. My son thinks that Wolverine,
the super hero from the X-Men, clawed it out of his head, which makes the plow
driver a “bad guy.” That being the case, my son is now scared to death of him.
I would try to reassure him, but I think it’s unwise not to be afraid of him.
2/10/15 – Despite the overturned plow that still lies in the
ditch across the street and the fact that no other plow has attempted to come
through my neighborhood, my boss called today and said if I don’t come in to
work, I’m fired. Luckily my wife’s company is more lenient because our daycare
option is the elementary school’s after-school program, which, like school
itself, has remained closed. I’m pretty sure the county has given up on the
rest of the school year and will just start the fall session in mid-May.
If I have to go in, I’m at least going to use this
opportunity to get the plow driver out of my house. I’m going to drop him at
his place of employment, or with someone he knows, or the freakin’ bus station,
if I have to. He’s eaten everything in the house and my wife is missing three
pairs of underwear.
2/11/15 – According to our neighbor, the grocery store’s food
trucks are delayed and there’s nothing left on the shelves except packets of
yogurt that you squeeze out of a tube. That’s absolutely perfect since we’re
now out of food thanks to the ex-con state employee who stayed with us for four
days. I don’t know whether to believe him or not. If there was a limited amount
of food left at the store and no estimated date for when the delivery trucks
would bring more, I would totally tell people the only food items left are
squeezable tubes of yogurt. Whether it’s true or not, I’ll have to find some
food on my way home from work tomorrow.
On a side note, my hands are so dry and cracked they look
like E.T. down by the creek. That reminds me, I forgot to turn on every faucet
in the house again before getting into bed. Not sure how I forgot. I’ve been
turning them on every night for six weeks in an effort to keep our pipes from
freezing. Looking forward to that next bill too. At least things at the house
aren’t as bad as they are at the office. Some of my co-workers have been
sleeping there because their pipes are frozen, or they don’t have heat, or both.
Yikes.
2/12/15 – Stopped into the store on my way home from work
and, sure enough, saw a man running to the register with the last tube of
squeezable yogurt in hand. He was naked from the waist down and urinating while
running through the aisles, presumably so no one would try to take the tube of
yogurt from him. Nevertheless, three people tried to do just that. I say that
if a man wants a tube of yogurt bad enough that he’s willing to run naked
through the store, urinating on himself and everything in front of him, then
just let him have it. At least, that’s what I told myself after leaving the
store. I wish I had told myself that before I joined the other two people in
trying to extract the yogurt from the peeing man’s hands. Sure, I would have left
the store empty handed, but I left empty handed anyway and am now covered in
piss. Hindsight’s 20/20, I guess.
2/15/15 – Valentine’s Day came and went. We had nothing at
home to eat, so the whole family went out to dinner. We also saw it as
potentially the last chance we would ever leave the house since tonight we’re
getting hit by a new snow storm that our local weatherman is calling the
‘Saskatchewan Ass Chapper.’ Under normal circumstances, I’m pretty confident he
would get fired for his on-air behavior, but all the other meteorologists in
town have been committed to the insane asylum. At any rate, few people are
venturing out onto the roads, so we actually got a table at the first place we
stopped at – Olive Garden. We brought garbage bags with us and shoveled salad
and breadsticks in them every time the waiter left our table. I’m pretty sure
he figured out what was going on fairly early, and at that point I’m also
pretty sure he replenished them with salad and breadsticks from the dumpster.
Whatever. Dumpster breadsticks from Olive Garden taste surprisingly like fresh
breadsticks from Olive Garden.
2/28/15 – My sister called to check on us today. She
couldn’t believe the news reports that schools in our area have been closed for
more than two months, but she still managed to put a happy twist on it. “The kids
must be having so much fun staying home from school,” she said. I almost hated
to tell her they woke up this morning, saw there was still snow on the ground
and immediately started stabbing each other with broken pencils. Turns out
that’s about all broken pencils are good for. The erasers proved ineffective in
making the blood on the carpet disappear.
She listened to me whine about the particularly long winter
we’ve had for another five minutes and then broke in to remind me we still have
running water, we still have electricity, that my wife and I both have our jobs
and our whole family has its health. “Things could be worse,” she said. And she’s
right. I felt kind of silly for going on about the snow. Bad weather is hardly
the worst thing that could happen. I really shouldn’t complain so much.
3/1/15 – Good news, the kids took to sleeping in the tent
with their sleeping bags better than I thought! They actually thought it was
fun. I was nervous they’d be a little freaked out by the janitorial crew
emptying the trash cans in the middle of the night, but they didn’t seem to
notice. My wife and I could use a hot shower, but the sinks in the men’s and
women’s bathrooms will have to do for now. And Bob in accounting says holding
your suits under the hand dryers is just as good as taking them to the dry
cleaners. Cheaper too.
They’re
telling us our electricity should be restored by the end of the week, and the
temperatures are rising, so our pipes should unfreeze any day now. After all,
it’s March. Spring is just around the corner.
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