I realize the skiers, snowboarders and snowmobile enthusiasts might dislike me for saying this, but I’m hoping for very little or no snow this winter.
It’s not that I don’t like snow…as long as I don’t have to drive in it. I think it gives everything a fresh, clean look (especially when it covers the dog poop I failed to pick up in the yard), and I’m particularly fond of the powdery kind of snow that sparkles in the light.
No, the problem with snow is my driveway (a.k.a. the asphalt menace from Hell). It has fought against and defeated even the bravest of souls who have dared to attempt to plow it throughout the years. And as a result, I now have no one to remove any snow that will defy my threats and still land on it this winter.
At least not for a price I can afford.
This driveway has been a curse since day one, mainly because the town wouldn’t grant a permit for the driveway that already existed on the property when my husband and I purchased it. Why not? Because that driveway exited into the exact spot in a cul-de-sac where the town piled up the mountains of snow its road crews plowed every winter.
After much debate, the town finally did approve a new location for our driveway...six acres away on the most overgrown, isolated part of the property. Clearing that area was the equivalent of clearing the Forest Primeval.
By the time the new driveway was completed and actually reached the site of our future house, it was over 220 feet long and had so many curves in it due to all of the boulders it had to avoid along the way, even a snake would break its back trying to follow it.
And to this day, people still mistake my driveway for a road.
But despite my careful placement of fluorescent driveway stakes each winter, nearly every plow driver I’ve hired has managed to wipe out most of them, knocking them down as if they were bowling pins. By now, I've purchased so many stakes, I figure I probably own stock in at least two of the companies that manufacture them...and I still have fiberglass splinters embedded in my skin to prove it.
Even though I always made certain to clearly mark where the asphalt area in front of the garage ended and my front lawn began, those stakes also promptly were plowed right down, as if they were invisible. Then the trucks plowed right across my lawn and scraped it up into a giant jelly-roll that took until July to fully melt.
The sides of my driveway, however, always have been the biggest problem because they contain an assortment of ravines and ditches that have caused damage to at least three trucks. One hit a tree, one ran over the remnants of an old stone-wall and tore off some major part underneath his truck, and another dented a front rim when it struck one of the culvert walls.
As a result, the first two plow guys I hired said, “Never again!” and quit. The third one stuck around, but said he would have to charge me by the inch for each storm. Up to six inches was $60. From six inches to a foot was $80. Anything over a foot was $100. And a blizzard was a flat $120.
So during each snowstorm, I’d be outside with my ruler every hour, measuring the inches and praying the snow would stop before it reached the next price level. I was a wreck, because even a mere quarter of an inch could force to me to cough up an extra $20.
Finally, an angel of mercy came to my rescue in the form of a guy named Chris, who read about my plight on Facebook and messaged me. He said he enjoyed helping people and would be more than happy to plow my driveway for $30 per storm, no matter how deep the snow was. He added, “And if you don’t have the money right away, don’t worry about it.”
I couldn’t believe my good fortune. But I was smart enough not to get too excited, mainly because I knew from experience that once the poor guy took a look at my driveway in person, he’d either break all speed records getting as far away from it as possible, or he would increase his price by about $85.
But Chris was amazing. The driveway didn’t seem to faze him at all. He plowed it in record time, and with everything – his truck, my lawn, his essential body parts – all still perfectly intact. One time, when he noticed how icy my driveway was underneath the snow, he returned with a truckload of sand, free of charge. “I didn’t want you to slip and fall while walking out to get your mail,” he said.
I had to pinch myself to make certain I wasn't dreaming.
But what really made me want to canonize Chris was one brutal winter when he was hospitalized with Covid. After several days he, still weak and tired, finally was discharged late one afternoon. The moment he got home, he jumped into his truck and headed right over to plow my driveway because it had snowed the day before and he was afraid I’d be trapped in my house.
Unfortunately, Covid eventually took its toll on Chris’ health, and he ended up with chronic lung and breathing problems and had to give up plowing.
So last winter I became plow-less. My friend’s husband was kind enough to offer to come over to plow for me, but after he knocked down a small pine tree and got a big scratch on the top of his truck from a low-hanging, snow-weighted branch, he said he feared for his life and wouldn’t be returning.
I wasn’t surprised.
Twice last winter, out of sheer desperation, I, using only a shovel, tackled the driveway myself. It took me about six hours…and half a bottle of Tylenol. The huge snowbank at the street end of the driveway – the snowbank that came up to my waist and contained chunks of ice the size of basketballs – nearly led to my premature demise. At one point, I became so exhausted and desperate while struggling to clear it, when I saw a plow truck approaching from a distance, I draped my body over the top of the banking, hoping the guy would stop to see if I was alive, and then take pity on me.
Instead, he almost ran over me.
“Sure,” I muttered, sitting up and glaring at the truck's tail-lights as the vehicle drove out of sight. “I’ll bet if I were some 20-something hot chick wearing only boots, a hat and a fur bikini, he would have stopped to help me!”
Instead, the guy probably was thinking, “That old lady hasn’t got long for this world anyway, so why bother?”
Alas, now that winter soon will be rearing its fiendish little head once again, I’m feeling panicky. I can’t find anyone even remotely close to my price range (no more than $40 per storm) to tackle my driveway. And I sincerely doubt the first snowstorm of the season is going to say, “Oh, poor Sally! She has no one to plow her out. So I'll be merciful and won’t allow even one flake of snow to land on her property.”
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| MY DRIVEWAY |
There’s one other thing I might try first, however, out of sheer desperation… hire someone to exorcize my driveway.
That is, if the exorcist charges less than $40.
Sally Breslin is an award-winning syndicated humor columnist who has written regularly for newspapers and magazines all of her adult life. She is the author of several novels in a variety of genres, from humor and romance to science-fiction. Contact her at: sillysally@att.net.
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