Our first snow-fall of the season and I’m exhausted.  With Hubby out of commission, (knee surgery..again. )  I decided to command the snow blower in order to move ma lovely car…so I could get to work on time.  Students were awaiting ma arrival to begin their exams!  I needed to sweep in there and make sure all were taken care of in a super-human and wonder-womanish like manner…kinda.  So at 6 am I head out to the man-shed and

…stood there looking like an ass.

I had no idea how to open the blessed doors…then I couldn’t find the light switch.  Hubby came hobbling out on one leg to show me how to turn on the light (the switch on the right hand side should have been my first clue. Duh) and how to start the snow blower…apparently, you have to plug the bloody thing in.  Who knew?  Last time I ran it I had to push a button.  He changed it up on me.  The thing is old, so it’s necessary to do a series of steps after it’s plugged in and before you start it.  I had to do a bunch of hand signals, push this, pull that and it magically started…I looked like that pretend sign language interpreter dude at Mandella’s funeral.

Only he’s a bit taller and he wasn’t wearing a parka.

The snow blower started and away I went…I almost took out the gate and part of the fence but the thing was moving!  I was so proud…until I hit the first drift and almost stalled the thing out.  Hubby comes hobbling out again…”You’re making my snow blower sound funny”..  “No I’m not!  That’s how it sounds!  It’s not like it’s supposed to speak whale or something, is it?!”

He takes it from me and proceeds to push it through the first drift…on one leg.  We start yelling at each other.  Me telling him to go back into the house and he trying to direct my snow blowing techniques.  Pretty soon, it was a full on “YOU LOOK RIDICULOUS! GO AWAY AND LEAVE ME TO DO THIS BEFORE YOU HURT YOURSELF”  and he “I WILL AS SOON AS YOU DO THIS RIGHT!”  I’m surprised the neighbours weren’t calling the cops and having them cite us for disturbing the peace. All I needed was one good push and hubby would have been like a turtle on its back in the snow…No, I wouldn’t do that…

Where everyone could see me.

 He relents and hobbles back into the house while I continue to get rid of the snow.  It wasn’t perfect, but I was able to blow out a major portion of it in front of my car and D1’s car. Of course, there were a few tense moments when the blower got away from me and D1’s front end almost had some festive green paint and a lovely little dent added to it. Perfect holiday effect.

  Yay me!

Of course, then I had to put the thing back into the shed…which he watched me do from the kitchen window.  I wanted to ram it into the fence but changed ma mind on account that it would just give him something to yell at me about AND I would have to re-stain the whole fence after he fixed it in the spring…so really, it was about saving work for me.  I wheeled the blower in perfect rotation into the shed.  Then I couldn’t turn it off, dammit.  I forgot the magic sequence of hand signals and turny knobby thingys.

I yelled.

He yelled back.

I turned it off.

All done.

I rock.

Kiss ma ass, snow.