January 11, 2010 - Homecoming Gift

My favourite part of coming home from a holiday abroad (ok, abroad's a bit pretentious there; it was a package quickie cheapy week in Cuba, but still...) is the stuff I discover about home when I get here. For example, after I spent some time in the southern US one spring, I suddenly noticed how many mobile homes there are around here. Before that trip, I would have told you there were none. But there are lots and lots of them, if you pay attention. This has me a little worried about hurricane season, frankly.

This time, when I got home, I was amazed at a stunning lack of neighbourliness on my street. After a week of being brought a drink whenever I needed one and food whenever I wanted it, I guess I somehow thought everyone, everywhere would be solicitous. Not so much. As my sweetie was leaving gifts for the chambermaids, our neighbours were leaving us a gift, too: seven feet of snow in front of our house, much of it in our driveway which makes it impossible to know if there’s are cars coming as we try to pull out onto the street. I’m not sure which neighbour to thank. Both have driveways; one a single, one a double. Both also have boulevards of their own, but only one of them has decided their boulevard should be a parking spot, and mine should be a snow heap.

Now, I’ve watched the pickup hired by the guy to the west shove snow from that boulevard onto ours for a couple of years now, so he definitely gets some of the blame. Since the driveway’s a single, it’s a way of creating a second parking spot. No one wants to go out on a snowy night to move their car just to let their spouse go to choir practice- I get it. But how to you get from wishing for that oh-so-convenient second parking spot to creating one by putting your neighbour's life at risk?

I wonder what those same neighbours would have to say if they arrived home one day to discover the boulevard in front of their house covered by seven feet of snow, and our second car in a lovely snow-clear spot in front of ours.

You never know, one day, I might find out.