Ain't that snow pretty?

It’s always been my dream to someday live in Alaska. After two snow storms that kept me from going on a research trip and then receiving a letter from my friend about her housekeeper’s son’s grandparents cousin, suffice it to say that I reevaluated my dream and changed it slightly.

 

Following last summer’s sweltering heat, these above mentioned folks moved north. Anywhere to escape another wrath filled summer. They could hardly wait for the first snow and they were never going to endure temperatures in the three digit numbers again.

 

Sometime in the first week of December it snowed. She said they made hot chocolate, sat by the picture window and watched the big white flakes float from Heaven. It was a romantic second honeymoon and they fell in love all over again.

 

The next morning they awoke to a beautiful sparkling blanket and her husband could hardly wait to get outside and try out his brand new red handled show shovel. He threw snow balls at her while she swept the front porch and they decided that moving away from heat infested Oklahoma was the best thing they ever did.

 

The sun came out and melted all their beautiful snow and her husband pouted until the next day when it started again. A neighbor told them that by the end of the month they’d be so sick of snow they’d take a loss on their lovely home and move to west Texas. They both agreed the neighbor was slightly senile.

 

The second week in December it snowed again. Eight inches and the temperature dropped to -20 degrees. Her husband grabbed his shovel and got everything cleaned off just minutes before the snow plow came along and pushed it all right back on his sidewalks. He grumbled a little when he had to remove it the second time.

 

The next day the weather forecast called for 20 more inches. They sold their car and bought a pick-up truck complete with snow chains, and a couple of extra shovels. They stocked the freezer and bought extra hot chocolate. She wanted to buy a wood stove. He told her she was over reacting.

 

On Dec. 16, an ice storm hit their part of the country. Her husband slipped on his way to the shed to get the shovels and landed on his fanny. She laughed. He didn’t.

 

The next day the electricity went off for five hours and they huddled together under blankets to keep warm. It wasn’t fun anymore. She reminded him that they should have bought the stove. He said she was nagging. She wanted to put the house on the market and live in a tent in the Sahara Desert.

 

Neither of them laughed.

 

Four days later another 14 inches of the miserable stuff fell from ugly gray clouds and the husband shoveled it three times. The snow plow came by two times. Their neighbor said they had to get it shoveled off the walks or the city would have it done and bill them for it on their water bill.

 

On Christmas another 13 inches of horrid snow fell and it was cold enough they didn’t think they’d thaw out until at least August of the next year. They had a white Christmas. It wasn’t romantic. The second honeymoon was definitely over. The husband got all dressed in his insulated coveralls and went out to shovel ... again. He said she’d better put the CD of White Christmas in the blender and pulverize it.

 

The day after Christmas another six inches of the slop came down and they were snowed in. She looked up the number for a divorce lawyer. The snow plow driver stopped to ask for a donation and the husband shoved him off the porch, then he vowed that if he had to watch another movie with the wife he was going to look up the telephone number of the nearest divorce lawyer.

 

On December 27, he declared that moving to that forsaken ice berg state was all her idea and that she was getting on his nerves. She reminded him that he’d been the one who moaned and complained about the heat last summer and it was his idea to move. She loved the sunshine. They both called the lawyer.

 

On December 29, it warmed up to -10 degrees but they were still snowed in. She said if he didn’t do something she was going to buy sled dogs to take her home to her mother’s house and he could freeze to death or set fire to the house to get warm. He gave the snow plow man enough money to put his eldest child through medical school just to take them to the nearest airport. They are in Florida for the rest of the winter.

 

I do not dream of Alaska or snow anymore and I will not complain about the heat this summer…as long as the air conditioner is working, that is!