I received news of the blizzard while I was with my amigos, Christmas night at a bar where the bartender clearly did not want to be there. After I arrived home in one piece around 4am with margaritas and Mamoun's shwarma with tabouleh quagulating in my stomach, I starting watching movies on Cuevana until 7am. I fell asleep and woke up to facebook status updates of "how pretty the snow looks."
Soon as the day wore on, the status updates changed from "how pretty the snow looks" to, "it is so ugly outside." I realized that some intense shoveling needs to be done and thought maybe my dad would do it if he realizes that no one is home. So I did my best to hide under my blanket, in my room but my warmth was short lived as my dad phoned me from the basement. I shall never forget the words that were uttered from his mouth. "GO SHOVEL," he said. My only response was to remind him that it is still snowing outside and there is no point in me shoveling when it will be all snowed in again. He did not care for this simple logic, he fired back "if you shovel now, you'll have less to shovel later." I realized, crazy man does kind of make sense, so I set out to shovel.
Shoveling wasn't bad, the snow was extremely soft. It's the speed of the snow flakes being blown by the strong wind that felt like needles pricking my face hurt the most. I decided it was time to go inside when I realized I might be able to get some sympathy dinner money for shoveling snow outside while it is snowing. My plan worked "fo' sho'" and soon I was in grease heaven.
My joy was short-lived when I decided to step outside my house the next morning. I was suppose to be at Ms. Lambert's, feeding Jenny her lunch. I woke up late and got ready and hope my dad shoveled some sort of walkway, at least big enough to put one foot in front of the other. As I see the amount of snow that has piled up in front of the storm door that I realize the jerk has escaped to work leaving me with all this snow to shovel. I decide it is best to call Samy and tell her I will most likely spend the entire day shoveling, therefore Jenny must starve. Since the dog doesn't eat much anyway she said she will feed her after and I went back inside to prepare for my shoveling expedition.
I already got a call from my mother reminding me to clean her car, the response in my head went sometime like "woman, yoose crazy, you are stuck upstate, you ain't here, no ones drivin', I ain't cleanin." But I thought it was best as her oldest and the most favorite daughter to assure her that her car will be cleaned, so I said "yea yea, sure sure."
I put on my super thick double-sided gloves, brightly colored hats and socks which I purchased from Peru, and pushed all the snow and opened the door to a bright day with snow mobiles going on all around me. I looked to the left where my dad always parks his car and find it empty. I curse my mis-fortune of not being adopted since I figured I were, by now I would have been reunited with my birth parents and residing in somewhere sunny where only flakes they know of are the ones that are from instant mashed potato boxes.
The snow is so heavy that it was extremely difficult to figure out where the steps were, so I carefully half climb down and half slide to the sidewalk. Upon my arrival, I try to think where is our shovel, since the last one was stolen by my dad's construction workers. I decide maybe I can borrow one from a neighbor, to my surprise I see my dad behind his car. I'm not quiet sure what he was doing there and I did not care. I screamed "where's the shovel?" since he is half deaf.
Instead of walking over and inquiring about my plan how I will conquer all this snow, he simply throws the shovel at me which lands on the snow. I pick it up and get to work. It didn't take me that long to realize that my dad's car is stuck and he cannot get to work. Since he is not a very patient man, he kept coming towards the house and going towards his car, perhaps hoping his restless pacing will make the car start. I am not going to lie, he did help me with the snow. He might have done thirty seconds worth of shoveling in total with one glove in hand. Yes, you read correctly, he was wearing one glove, ONE. When I asked him where is his second glove, he merely dismissed me. When I asked him again, he said it fell somewhere in the snow. He didn't even take me up on my offer of me giving him my gloves. I figured him wearing one glove probably has some sort of self-sacrifice relating to Bill Gates or Gandhi, so I left him be.
During the time when I was shoveling, he went inside the house and kept popping in and out like a Meerkat. At one time he came out with cake crumbs smeared all over his face with a half eaten cake pointed at me. This was his way of giving me my lunch break. We made small talk. He kept on reminding me that this must "hoarlds biggest snow". I rolled my eyes and continued shoveling. The times he came out, I kept on telling him to get the salt from the garage and he kept on telling me that it's impossible to get to the garage. I thought, perhaps he kept coming back to check up on me to see if I am okay. But my hopes for his endearment failed miserably when all he did was stare at his car, finding ways to see if it will budge so he can escape to his heaven, his practice.
He did once get really excited, I thought perhaps his happiness had to do with me doing such a great job at shoveling. After all, my shoveling looked just as great as my neighbor who was using a snow blower. I was wrong, he was excited because he saw a car that came to our block and was able to drive through it. He excitedly asked me "how did that car do that? How did it go through?" I gave him the only logical answer he did not want to hear, "that car doesn't have crappy tires like your car." This shut him up and made him realize that his car is stuck for good and he went back inside and didn't come out for a while.
As I was putting my back into it, breaking the snow that has been packed under by many footsteps, a car gets stuck. I decided to go in and let my dad know that because of his car, cars are getting stuck.
What I saw from the top of the steps of the basement, I shall never forget. There he was, in a nice, warm and cozy basement, in his lungi, bare-chested, watching Ntv. While my feet was borderline numb and my cheeks so cold and red that it would have cut from the cold. He did not even bother to come up as he told me "tell them you don't know who the car belongs to."
My mind was elsewhere when I noticed a handsome group of Mexicans walking past. They did give me a nice icy stare before continuing on to their journey of seeing if anyone wanted them to shovel. I finally realized that they saw my brightly colored South American gear, my hat with "Cusco" written all over it and realized, "this one got to this house before we did. Vamenos amigos." I realized perhaps maybe my fate would have some luck like Kate Dawson's, perhaps if I quietly say "come back, come back", they might just feel sorry enough for me to come back. But my attempts were futile.
I could have dropped an F bomb and went back in, but my stubborness of finishing a task got the best of me. It's when snot started coming out of my nose I decided to start my journey to the garage and get some salt. I climbed the massive thigh high pile of snow to the garage, tripping in every step possible due the junk on the floor the snow has covered. I brushed the snow off and found the handle, got the bucket of snow and saw that there isn't much snow on the driveway, since mother nature's wind blew all our snow towards our neighbors driveway.
Once again, my happiness was short lived as I find the gate locked. My only other option was to climb the snow and make my way towards the front of the house. I did so in one piece, put some salt on the rest of the snow mah's, got a 20.00 from my dad, got me some amazing chicke and rice&beans courtesy of "Golden Chicken", and ate it while catching up on "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia."
The next day, I couldn't get up because my back was hurting.
