I hate the cold.

It’s not like I go out a lot and it’s not like I would go out more in warmer weather (but I would probably). I just hate the cold.

We got the first snow of the season around here yesterday. It wasn’t anything bad, just a bit of a dusting — kind of a portent of things to come. Living in the ’burbs or the country you have a decidedly different view of winter than city folk. City folk live in apartments (or condos or coops) so when it snows, they get their galoshes out and maybe grumble about trudging through the mini lakes that form at every street corner.

But... they don’t shovel.

“Oh, the snow is so pretty!”

“Oh, isn’t winter nice!”

F**k that.

Every year winter comes and I’m faced with the reminder of how out of shape I’ve gotten as I labor getting the driveway clear of the stuff. Our driveway is sunken, meaning there is a 3 foot wall on either side of it so, shoveling becomes one of these things where you aren’t just pushing snow out of the way as much as you’re digging a ditch about 30' wide by 60' long.

If it’s only an inch or two it’s about a half hour. Anything above four inches and you’re talking a serious workout. Last winter there were a couple of times where we got about 8 inches – that’s between four and five hours worth of shoveling. You can’t really have someone come and plow the driveway because of the way it’s set up and having someone come and shovel it is just as much a pain because you’d still have to wait for them to get to you.

The old guy is 80 and when it snows just figures he isn’t going to sit in the house and wait for things to clear up no, let’s get out there and go driving. Anyway, you can’t leave it in case he does need to get out so, it has to be done. Before work, before anything really. Everytime it snows, the driveway just has to be cleared.

Last year I was working most of the winter and a couple of times I just wasn’t really up for shoveling for four hours and then hopping on a train for another two just to get in and sit at a desk when I could just as well telecommute.

You remember telecommuting? It’s that thing that was supposed to cut down on rush hour traffic and make things so much easier for everyone. Never really seemed to take in quite the big way people were predicting, did it?

Nope, nothing kind of beats having the boss be able to stare at you all day just to make sure you’re working, does it now?

I digress.

So, we got snow and there was wind and it was cold and I didn’t go out for the day (except to bring down the garbage and bring in the paper). All day long I kept wishing I could close my eyes and it would be late March or April.