2007-12-14 19:18 | fche blog seriously snow friends
Winter weather brings out the worst and the best in people — along the thin spectrum of normalcy in north american suburban life.
The first snowfall of the season caught our street off guard. Everyone fended for himself, and people worked their snow shovels hard. The few that tried their snow blowers ended up with sputtering failures. The second snowfall, just days ago, was rather different: people were prepared, and had less snow to shovel. So, how did people react?
adjective
behaviour
catatonic
does not clear driveway or sidewalk
indifferent
shovels own driveway and sidewalk, pays no attention to neighbours
normal
shovels own areas, and token segments of neighbours’ sidewalks
ostentatious
uses brand new snowblower on own ridiculously tiny area
spoilsport
shovels own areas with brand new snowblower, then proceeds to ruin it for everyone else’s new snowblower by clearing whole swaths of the street
boy scout
buys and maintains a high-powered, fuel-guzzling, awesomely noisy snow blower; after finishing own area, invites neighbours to play, er, use the machine too
May I advance to the highest stratum.
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On a slightly different level:
Californian — Complains about how cold the 40°F nights are.
Coloradan — Brags to Californians about the snow and sub-zero weather in his home state.
Canadian — Scorns those who still use °F for temperature and can’t convert to °C in their heads. Josh Stone (URL) - 2007-12-14 21:33
The novelty wears off fast. Just think, you have at least a dozen years of snow clearing in front of you, at least until your sons are big enough to operate high-powered, fuel-guzzling, awesomely noisy machinery. It’s not so bad now because you don’t have to clear snow and rush to work in the morning. Wait till your children are school age, then you will have to get up early in the morning, clear snow, before you can send them off to school. Soon enough, you will be glad global warming makes for less and less snow each year. Li - 2007-12-20 09:57
It’s also interesting, unspoken suburban etiquette says you cannot operate a lawnmower early in the morning, but it’s perfectly okay to operate high-powered, fuel-guzzling, awesomely noisy snowblower anytime of the day. Li - 2007-12-20 10:03
There are several key differences as regards etiquette.
Snow clearing is a matter of safety, not aesthetics.
Snow clearing is done at wintertime, when people are generally indoors, so the noise is not so annoying.
Snow clearing is faster than lawn mowing (for reasonably proportioned lots). Frank - 2008-09-05 22:45