one last bit about winter

I warned that some of these texts may well be rants. Here are the first two.

1. Last Saturday's Montreal Gazette had an article on exhausted snow crews ("Snow crews are like punch-drunk prizefighters", by Alan Hustak, Saturday, March 15, 2008, page A8.) I sympathize with these guys, I really do; I'm the type who would hibernate if I could. But one part drove me up the wall.

"Among the biggest frustrations for snow crews are well-intentioned residents who hire private contractors to clear their driveways or re-arrange piles of snow in their neighbourhood.

"It's very disheartening," Wadsworth said. "You think you've cleaned the street, you look behind you, and you see snow from a private driveway dumped where you have just finished working.""

Umm, I really hate to break this to you, Mr. Wadsworth, but if I had a dollar for each time the snowplow dumped a three-foot high snowbank just as I/my boyfriend/my dad/anyone else I know finished shovelling the driveway right before leaving for work, we could all SPEND OUR WINTERS IN JAMAICA!!! Suck it up, at least you're PAID to live with the frustration.

2. Prior to the last big dump (which was just over a foot of snow), we broke our last remaining shovel. So we headed to our local hardware store (which, for reasons soon to be obvious, will remain nameless). In the parking lot, four guys were busy shovelling around their loading deck. Inside, we were greeted with barbecues, gazebos, lawn chairs and gardening tools.

"I'm sorry, we don't have shovels anymore. The season's over."

- You do realize half your staff is outside shovelling, it's barely March, and they're predicting between one and two feet of the stuff over the weekend???

- That's marketing's decision. Sorry."

Isn't one of the basic tenets of marketing to provide the product at the moment the customer needs it? Or maybe that just makes too much sense. In the meantime, I hope they choke on their weedwhackers.

Fortunately, friends of ours, with apparently more sense than **** (that's how many letters in the name of said hardware store) happily provided us with their spares to get us through the storm.

Now, since I want this blog to mainly be a positive experience, I will kwitmybitchin.