Schnee und Schadenfreude (Snow and feelings of pleasure at . . . oh, just read it.)

The BBQ Pit
1

Yesterday, I got to watch as the campus police pulled over a student who was driving around with about a foot-deep accumulation of snow on his car, blocking his window, obscuring his license plate and brake lights, and so on. He had cleared off the windshield, and that was it. Oh, and he was headed toward the campus exit that leads to the highway, where the snow would have blown off, creating an impenetrable miniature blizzard and flying back onto whoever had the misfortune to be behind him.

Seeing the ticket issued gave me a warm, fuzzy feeling.

But the best part was when the cop returned to his warm car and sat and watched as the young man cleared all the snow off his car. Did I mention it was cold and windy and snowing? Did I mention that this young man wasn’t wearing any gloves, and didn’t have a snow brush, so he was clearing the snow off with one of those little windshield-scraper thingies? Oh, yes. He had Massachusetts plates, too, so it’s not like he’s some poor chump just arrived from Florida. He should know how to dress himself in winter and have the proper snow removal equipment in his car.

I realize it makes me a bad, bad person to enjoy the thought of him freezing his wee, precious fingers, but man that was fun to watch.

You know what would really make my year, though? You know those asshats who plow their drivewas out onto the road and leave the snow in the middle of the road for everyone to drive through? And you know how they wait to do this until the day after the storm, so the snow plows aren’t running any more and the snow just sits there?

I would so love to come across a county sheriff handing one of those morons a snowshovel and standing over them while they carry the snow, one shovelful at a time, off the public road where it was creating a completely unnecessary hazard for everyone, and back into his fucking yard. There’s a sheep-fondling jerkwad who does this on our road every time we get more than a couple of inches of snow. It cannot possibly be legal to dump your snow in the right-of-way. I so badly wanna see his ass fined.

2

I couldn’t agree more.

Why don’t you call the police next time that dumbass is shovelling snow on to the road?

3

He doesn’t shovel, he plows, the bastard. So I’ve never actually seen him do it. Nonetheless, there’s that pile of snow out in the road thing that makes it pretty obvious what happened. I see plenty of sheriff’s cars on this road, and the volunteer fire department is out here, too. I assume that The Man is well aware of this guy’s shenanigans. And yet they do nothing! NOTHING! Too busy bustin’ up meth labs and keeping a stern eye out for alcohol violations at the topless bar down the road, ah reckon.

4

I guess I was wierd, because I would shovel my driveway and the road in front of the house those rare times we would get snow.

(In Raleigh, scrapers NEVER come into the neighborhoods.)