Let's Go, Buffalo! (A Cry, Not A Cheer)

This is Buffalo.

We get a lot of snow.

This comes as no surprise to me.

This should come as no surprise to you.

It should especially come as no surprise to the snow-removal department of the US’s 4^th snowiest city (source: weather.com).

And yet here we are in early-mid January, and our road has remained unplowed for nigh on a week.

A WEEK!

Okay, not quite a week. Still.

But life must go on.

And so my trusty little fusion (Lady A) and I have braved the arctic roads.

Careening wildly, slip-sliding, at times spinning in lazy circles down the road – but forging ahead never-the-less.

We try to make the best of it.

And so tonight, when we got completely and gloriously stuck at the end of my driveway, we made the best of it.

Lady A tried valiantly to lurch free – but countless forward-reverse-forward-reverse-forward-reverses resulted only in a foul smell I attribute either to burning rubber (unlikely since we were spinning on ice) or to over-due-for-a-change oil running through a frantically cycling engine.

(I know Dad, I know. I promise I’m getting my oil changed this week.)

"It’s okay," I thought cheerily (I may be exaggerating my cheerfulness slightly at this point) – “I haven’t gotten around to arm day at the gym in awhile, I could use the workout.”

And so I shoveled.

And shoveled.

And tried again. We couldn’t get out of the driveway still, but did successfully move far enough into it that we were no longer hanging half out into the road.

So I shoveled more.

And more.

And finally…

…guess who FINALLY decided to show up? That’s right – the friendly neighborhood snowplow *swear word.*

Not once, but twice he passed, kindly depositing the street's snow back into my driveway.

Back to square one.

Then my shovel cracked.

My benevolent plans to clear out around the next-door neighbor’s cars were thrown by the wayside like so many shovels of frozen sludge slung by extremely fatigued (may better be described as aching, or even burning) arms. We won't even mention how my back was feeling.

And so, we come to the part of the story where we must tie it all together in some succinct conclusion.

The moral of this story is dual:

1)   I should probably start getting around to arm day more often.

2)   Buffalo, you really need to get your *swear word* together.