As you may have heard, Chicago got a nice dusting of snow. We got about 6 inches here in the west 'burbs, but luckily everyone was warned it was coming. The streets were pretty clean and the traffic, although slow, wasn't horrendous. Most of the snow came down before the morning rush hour.

This is one of the times I'm happy I work at home. I didn't have to trudge through the snow to get to work. Then again, Dave was on call that day so I had to shovel the driveway. We had bought a snowblower last year, but I had no idea how to use it. I looked at the directions and turned it on, scared that I would blow the thing up. Obviously, I didn't blow up, and I was amazed how easy it was to use. Then in stopped after the first pass. I had no idea what was wrong - was it the choke? Was it the primer? What the hell am I talking about? I figured out that it was probably out of gas, so I found the gas can and cautiously put more gas in, once again scared of blowing up.

I live on a pretty busy street, so the snowplows had moved a lot of snow to the edge of our driveway. I didn't bother cleaning the very edge planning on leaving it for Dave to do the next day.

I got a phone call that evening from Dave's parents, who had caught an early flight home from the Philippines. They wanted to avoid the typhoon that was coming (which is a good thing since many people have died from it). They needed a ride home. I told them I would be on my way, but didn't hurry since I knew they had to go through customs.

I packed up Ben, put him in the car and headed out onto my clean driveway. Until I got to the bottom. I got stuck. I shifted into drive, and moved a couple inches. Shifted back to reverse, and moved back a couple inches. I had a feeling this would take a while. I was a little worried about having Ben in the car so I took him out and put him back into the house. Back in the car, I was timing the cars that were passing (busy street, remember?) because I didn't want to hit the gas and fly out into the street should the car get free.

No luck!

I went into the garage and got our shovel and started digging myself out. The snow was just too high and there was extra snow because of the snowplows. I got back in the car and tried again, going forward and backward, turning my wheel trying to get me out of my rut. Got out of the car again and this time I could her Ben screaming because he's wondering where the hell his mama went. I dug out more snow from underneath the car, waited for more cars to pass, got in, back, forth and finally the car came out of its rut. *whew*

It only took 25 minutes! *gah*

By that time Ben was hysterical and didn't stop crying until we got to the airport (of course I got a little lost since I've never been to the International Terminal).

All was good once we got back home. I just made sure to go back in my old tracks and not hesitate once I got over my little snowbank.

Even with all that drama, I still love snow!

Posted by Yano at December 5, 2006 02:01 PM

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