LOOKING THE GIFT HORSE IN THE MOUTH

Remember hearing “don’t look a gift horse in the mouth?” Well, this past week-end had me re-evaluate that old saw. I will not go into any details about a couple phone calls I got over the week-end, but  suffice it to say, the essence of both tales of woe were the same – how sometimes helping someone out – or thinking you are helping someone out kind of backfires on you or even the  receiver of your ‘helping.’

            My tale of woe is so insignificant by comparison to what a couple other folks are going thru it almost sounds stupid to tell – but at the time of writing this, I have just come in from shoveling a portion of my driveway. Actually, I worked on it several different times as I finally figured out Frankie was NOT going to get to my little insignificant driveway- and I had to get out to open the church at noon on Monday. I swear, Sunday night I truly did not see how I was going to manage it. But, back to my gift-horse… the boy that cuts my grass got his license a little over a month ago- yep, he is all of 16. He is a good boy, don’t get me wrong. Anyway, he and his future brother-in-law (who also works for me some on week-ends “home” from Liberty) apparently were driving around town pulling into people’s driveways, smashing thru their drifts and packing down their snow with his mighty Tundra, then backing out and ‘zooming” off to the next house. My guess is they were doing all the church members – and even tho I am not a member of their church, still, they look out for me. I yelled NO as they drove and backed back and forth several times making a god-awful ice pack in my driveway. Of course they could not hear me, I was in, they were out… So, my driveway is shoveled relatively clean except for the place where one needs to drive where I have about 3 or more inches of solid packed snow/ice. I can not break thru it with the shovel.

            Then, ‘someone’ offered to help shovel, since her van is parked out there, and so she threw the snow from where her van had to drive onto a different part of the driveway instead of off into the yard or garden, I finally had to stop her cuz she was doubling my work when I had to move the snow that was already there and the additional ‘shoveled’ snow. Sigh.

            Ah, such trivial crap… but when you are 74 years old and in serious pain… it becomes frustrating. All I wanted was to let the early morning sun hit the concrete enough to melt/evaporate enough bare spots that we could get in and out.

As you can see, the road is a packed sheet of snow/ice. Where no one has walked or driven, I am down to the ground or within an 1/8th of an inch of it... all but the tracks should be melted by this evening. It is supposed to get above freezing - 28 now. So... we shall see.