Snowbound

So you know that scene in The Shining where they have been snow bound for awhile and he starts typing "All work and no play. . ." I never took that too seriously because I live in a cold weather place and have never experienced that level of psychosis-until today.

Today I got up, shoveled another five inches of snow, and got my daughter ready for school. i laughed, amused at her bundled up waddle out to the car. I was sad that I didn't have a video camera for when she stepped out into the driveway, one eye on her father gently encouraging her to get in the car, one on the ginormous snow bank next to the garage. In an instant I saw her resolve cave and knowing full well she should be getting in the car, she flung herself with abandon onto that snowbank rolling around like a pig in mud. We tried hard to mad, but we can't, after all the poor kid can't even move her arms. Let her go. I ate breakfast, watched the weather which informed me that we will be getting at least another six inches of snow before the week's up, so back out to shovel every last inch before more snow comes. That's when it all turned.

I am not sure if anyone who has never shoveled snow can understand the psychotic rage that occurs when you shovel for long periods of time in temperatures hovering in the teens. The wind is blowing snow you have already shoveled back onto the driveway, half the snow has already turned to ice so you are using a combination of your boots and your shovel to try and dislodge it and all your neighbors are watching this scenario from their front windows. They are waving to you because they are nice Midwestern folk, and that's when the rage bubbles over to an irrational combination of kicking, swearing, crying and stripping down to your sweater because suddenly, even though it is 16 degrees outside you are blazing hot.

So you go in, call your husband, sobbing, tell him you hate the winter and that you are moving in with your aunt in Florida and that you still have to go to the grocery store and can he please come home so that you can take a nap because, after all, you are exhausted. He responds with a calm and even, "Okay, honey, take a breath we are going to get through this." Like you have just been hit by a tsunami or something. After all, he takes this call about twice every winter for the past six years, he's prepared for the psychosis of being snow bound.