f snowy sidewalks. I quoted Edmund Burke and told her that “No one could make a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little,” but she wasn’t convinced. She said it was a nice gesture but it wouldn’t make any difference. Anyways, I still thought I did a good job and wanted to go and take another look. I peeked out the window just in time to see someone walking his dog down the sidewalk except… rather than take advantage of my freshly cleared and salted, totally ice-free stretch of sidewalk, he went around. He went around! He actually went out of his way just so he could walk over more snow and ice because for some crazy reason, that’s preferable to walking on solid concrete (it’s not icy, I checked). What’s with this guy? The only explanation I can think of is that his life is somehow so dull that he needs the constant threat of slipping and breaking his neck to make it more interesting. Go for it dude.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
A Waste of Effort?
After walking home two miles through the snow today after school (not just a cliché), I immediately set to work shoveling the sidewalk in front of my house. I did a good job and was especially proud because it was apparently a chore very few in the neighborhood had bothered to do. When my wife got home later on, she said it was pointless that I had even bothered shoveling because hardly anybody else had and it wouldn’t matter much set against miles o
f snowy sidewalks. I quoted Edmund Burke and told her that “No one could make a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little,” but she wasn’t convinced. She said it was a nice gesture but it wouldn’t make any difference. Anyways, I still thought I did a good job and wanted to go and take another look. I peeked out the window just in time to see someone walking his dog down the sidewalk except… rather than take advantage of my freshly cleared and salted, totally ice-free stretch of sidewalk, he went around. He went around! He actually went out of his way just so he could walk over more snow and ice because for some crazy reason, that’s preferable to walking on solid concrete (it’s not icy, I checked). What’s with this guy? The only explanation I can think of is that his life is somehow so dull that he needs the constant threat of slipping and breaking his neck to make it more interesting. Go for it dude.
f snowy sidewalks. I quoted Edmund Burke and told her that “No one could make a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little,” but she wasn’t convinced. She said it was a nice gesture but it wouldn’t make any difference. Anyways, I still thought I did a good job and wanted to go and take another look. I peeked out the window just in time to see someone walking his dog down the sidewalk except… rather than take advantage of my freshly cleared and salted, totally ice-free stretch of sidewalk, he went around. He went around! He actually went out of his way just so he could walk over more snow and ice because for some crazy reason, that’s preferable to walking on solid concrete (it’s not icy, I checked). What’s with this guy? The only explanation I can think of is that his life is somehow so dull that he needs the constant threat of slipping and breaking his neck to make it more interesting. Go for it dude.
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Oh man, that's just so lame. If it makes you feel any better, a similar thing happened to me yesterday. I got home from school about an hour before dark and thought it would be nice if I cleared the sidewalk in front of our place. I mean, I walk to school on these sidewalks, and I appreciate it when there's a clear section (I would not have walked AROUND your nicely shoveled and salted section of sidewalk). So I shoveled and shoveled, and scraped and picked...we were out of town for two and a half weeks, so I had a lot of material to work my way through. Well, I had just finished about 45 minutes' worth of shoveling snow when my neighbor got home. We started talking, and she told me it was really a waste of time because I wasn't able to get all of the ice off and therefore it was just more slippery for pedestrians (although I'd walked on it, and it really wasn't). Then she suggested that I shovel some of the powder from our lawn back onto the sidewalk to undo the potential damage I'd done. She meant well, and I really appreciate her comments, but that was a pretty depressing way to finish up my labor.
ReplyDeleteWow. You win; that sucks even more than my story. If my neighbor told me to shovel more snow ONTO the sidewalk I just cleared, I’d be pretty upset. I might just feel compelled to shovel snow onto the neighbor instead.
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