A Day like Any Other Day

The day began like any other day for Pete, his alarm hammering in his ear like a nuclear test site, and not being able to find the off switch. Thankfully when alarm clocks hit walls they seem to magically shut off. Normally Pete would pole vault out of bed, but today he had some extra time and didn't need to rush to work. Pete stumbled down the hallway towards the bathroom pausing only to look out the window, the sun was shining and it seemed it was going to be yet another gorgeous autumn day, except for the five inches of snow which crept up on him overnight. Now living in the northeast, you would think that wouldn't be a surprise. The northeast is known for its fifty plus inches of snow each year, but its only October, usually folks around Pete's home town are just wishing for a white Christmas. He never heard anyone say, "I hope we have snow for Halloween this year".

Despite the snow on the ground and trying to convince his wife that all snow events don't cancel school or make the roads treacherous, he tried to explain that it's October, the ground and road surfaces are still holding heat from the prior days sunshine and high temperature of sixty five degrees. Now all this made sense to Pete and his son Rudi who was going through his morning rituals, you know the ones like looking for that favorite shirt that has been lying on the floor in the laundry room for a week. But none of the twenty some shirts hanging in his closet will satisfy his needs today, it must be that one, so in the washer it goes.

Now the bus for school arrives every morning at seven, it is now six thirty. I don't know about your house but laundry typically takes one hour to wash and another hour to dry. Not true for Rudi, he has the ability to make all this happen in one hour. This means that the next question out of his mouth will be "Dad, can you drop me off at school on your way to work"? And moments later that came true, along with Pete's wife Virginia who wasn't buying the warm ground, warm roads story. Looking out the window at the five inches of snow blanketing their deck and front yard, she barked out "you can't tell me that all this snow lying on our warm ground isn't laying on the roads also. You need to take me to work I can't drive in this weather."

Shirt washed and dried in record time, truck cleaned off, Virginia and Rudi packed in the cab to head out on the treacherous roads, which turned out to be only wet. Pete didn't say a word. He dropped his wife off at her work, then traveled across town to drop Rudi off at school, then proceeded to work. Pete arrived at work fifteen minutes late, to find a waiting boss with a disgusted look on his face. Apparently Pete had forgotten an important meeting, he tried to tell him the roads were treacherous out his way. I don't think he bought this though, his reply to him was "Son, your telling me after it was sixty five degrees yesterday, that the roads are cold enough to hold snow. Blah!! Everyone knows that isn't so." Pete can only be glad that tomorrow is Saturday. Oh yeah It's also Virginia's birthday. Pete decided her gift would be a snowblower.