Get a load of that snow!

Years of conditioning had me out of bed before dawn to check on school closings. As so many times in the past, all schools reported closings except for Madison’s public schools. There are arguments to be made on both sides of the issue, but they no longer concern me. It was merely a point of curiosity. And I was anxious to play the role of the benevolent neighbor, the one without kids needing to rush to make it to school and without my own pressing time issues. I wanted to repay past favors and shovel sidewalks of proximate kind souls.

[Blogger ethics are nothing compared to intricate shoveling ethics: you absolutely are the rudest person if you stop at your property line and do not shovel up to the neighbor’s driveway – like my neighbors to the south who are considered utter pariahs for their selfish property-guided shoveling practices. And, if you have time, you shovel your neighbor’s walk. If you are feeling so generous that your heart is bursting at the seams, you may, every two winter seasons or so, do the walkway up to their door as well. But you are never ever obligated to touch their driveway, unless they are elderly or feeble or incapacitated. Otherwise, shoveling someone’s driveway is an embarrassment of riches – you’re overstepping the boundaries of camaraderie.]

I was too late. The sun had not yet risen, but the shovelers were out there already and so we shoveled en masse, with jocular shouts to each other, in the way guys talk when they are trying to be friendly. Yes, that’s right, guys. For shoveling has remained a task for men. Guys grill and guys shovel. That’s just the way it is in America. [Before I get barraged with emails telling me I am grossly exaggerating, let me just say that I am simply reporting what happens around me: absolutely no woman shovels on our long block if there is a guy in the house. This is true even though in three households we have stay-at-home (or work at home) dads and in most households both the man and woman work.]