I’ve always been hesitant to buy a snow blower.  For one thing I have a storage problem.  The available space in my single car garage is gradually becoming unavailable.  So I have a big debate with myself about spending money on one every winter.   What it’s come down to is a poker game between me and Mother Nature.  The way I figure it, I win the longer I can put off the expense.  The x factor of the equation is inches of snow per season.  As long as I’m not dealing with an avalanche of snow during the winter, I don’t mind shoveling a few times a year.  And if I decide to gamble the other way and finally purchase a snow blower, and that particular winter sets a five year record for snow fall, in my mind I will have cashed in on a double-downed bet.

My little game of chance has been going on for about eight years now.  That’s about how long I’ve been dealing with the osteoarthritis that has been invading various nooks and crannies of my skeletal structure.  That’s one of the reasons I don’t mind shoveling a few inches of snow, at least up to this point.  You need to get some movement going to keep your joints from freezing up.  No doubt I can stand the work out.  I sit around on my ass all day typing up shit like this.  Some days the only exercise I get is opening and closing the refrigerator door.  Real men don’t need snow blowers.  All my neighbors have one, but to me when they get all show-offie with their machines, if it’s not a validation of self coddling, it is at least a display of hubris.  I generally don’t go for that sort of thing.

Sure there’s the argument that having a snow blower around would save me time.  But right there is maybe the main reason I don’t need one.  Saving time might be important if I had important stuff to do, like go to work.  But I’m retired.  I have no place I have to be.   It’s THE perk of retirement, the life style advantage to which all others are measured. If it snows a foot, big deal. I have all day, all week, to shovel what I need to shovel. The city ordinance about getting the snow removed from a street-side sidewalk does not apply to me because I don’t have a street-side sidewalk. When my wife and I bought this house 43 years ago that was something we did not give the slightest thought to. Sometimes life just works out.

I don’t mind telling you I have been taking Mother Nature to the cleaners.  In the past seven years Omaha has had only one  winter weather event that has produced more than eight inches of snow.  Typically we get a couple of bouts of two to five inches, a few dustings, and that’s about it.  We used to get a lot more winter precipitation, if I remember right.  No doubt what’s happening lately has something to do with climate change.  But five days ago some very ominous weather reports started rolling in.  Three days later I received confirmation from every TV weatherman that the snow storm moving in from the west was going to be a doozie, a virtual white armageddon.  Driving around in my car, radio station KRAP informed me I was going to get at least a foot of snow dumped on my driveway.  I bounced from one of my pre-selected radio stations to another hoping that at least one of them would just keep playing the 60’s music that I had pre-selected them to play, so I could stop thinking about all the shoveling I might have to do.  But every disk jockey was saying the same thing.  Get to the grocery store and stock up.  You won’t be able leave your house for a week so it wouldn’t hurt to check and make sure you have enough of your prescription meds on hand.  .  Better pick up some bottled water because there’s a good chance your pipes will freeze once the power goes out.  Also you might want to drop by church real quick and say a little prayer that you don’t have a heart attack because there’s just no way an ambulance is going to be able to get to you.  Whatever you do don’t go outside and shovel.  You’ll have a heart attack.

So I decided it was time to cash in my chips.  I was certain Mother Nature wasn’t bluffing this time.  I went out and bought a Snow Buster 5000, smugly confident I had outfoxed my opponent once again with my purchase.  The full house of a storm she was about to throw down would be no match for my Snow Buster 5000 royal flush I was going to surprise her with.

There is one thing about my Snow Buster 5000 that is of an inconvenient nature.  It’s heavy.  I made the mistake of removing it from my SUV by myself and tore the flesh away from my shin bone and crushed the small toe on my left foot in the process. I’ll probably lose that nail.  But after filling my Snow Buster 5000 with gas I was confident I was ready for whatever Mother Nature was going to deposit on my driveway overnight.

The next morning what greeted me was not Mother Nature’s wrath, but rather a thumb-nosing mockery- an inch of snow.  Geezuz I can take care of that with my leaf blower, which besides my snow shovel is what I used because my fucking Snow Buster 5000 won’t start.  I could have easily made it through another season without the god damned thing.  You stupid bastard  weathermen can just stick your fancy doppler radar up your ass.  I know you think your incompetence can be easily glossed over by reminding us how lucky we were to have avoided your forecasts,  but I would like to point out your forecasts were the reason I took a personal bitch slapping from Mother Nature.  The least one of you could do is take this piece of shit Snow Blaster 5000 off my hands.

                                       

Show Room Snow Blaster 5000                                      My Snow Blaster 5000