Snow Day_(1)

Snow day.

As a fifteen year old (sixteen in four months) I was a hard worker. I come from a middle class family but was never given any thing for free. I had to work. If I wanted a new bike I had to raise the money my self. My parents were not unreasonable, if they knew I had a savings project on the go they would inquire about my progress. At some point in the process they would normally pony up a portion of the money as long as I had made an honest effort to secure the needed cash. They said it was a good learning experience and it assured that my purchases were not frivolous.

I would do just about anything to raise money. My jobs included a paper route, cutting grass, shovelling snow, running errands for old ladies, buying old bikes fixing and painting them to resell at a profit and, well you get the picture.

This story has connections with a couple of my jobs.

One January day we received a tremendous amount of snow over night. The paper I delivered was the morning addition. I started my route at about 5:30 in the morning and finished about an hour later. As I was eating my oatmeal I heard on the radio that school had been cancelled do to the heavy snow fall. Most of my friends would be ecstatic when they got their sorry asses out of bed, me, not so much. For me it meant a long hard day of work. While my friends got together and played video games I would be breaking my back shovelling the sidewalks and driveways of my regular customers.

When I left the house I was disappointed to realise that there was no way I could ride my bike. It was also evident the I could not wake my mom to drive me as that would be imposable to do as well. The last thing I wanted to add to my list of things to do was push my mom’s car out of the snow.

This was going to be a very long day. I set out to deliver my papers and along the way, as I anticipated, I picked up several snow shovelling jobs. My route took me an extra hour and a half. Between the snow and talking to my customers about what they wanted shovelled (some wanted only side walks some wanted drives some wanted both) I got to the last house on my route. This customer was always the worst. He was always standing there when I approached his house as his dog let him know I was coming. He was always dressed impeccably in a suit and tie and was never happy about the time. On one occasion he threatened to change papers unless I switched my route so he was first to get his paper. I tried to explain to him that when I got the route everyone new when their paper would arrive and that his was a fairly new subscription and it was not fair for my other clients to all of a sudden change. This was difficult as this gentleman was quite intimidating.

On this particular day he was again standing at the door with his barking dog, extremely pissed off because I was so late and in no uncertain terms let me know it. Then this pretentious bastard ask me to shovel his drive so he could go to work. I informed him that I had several other requests for the same service ahead of him. He then offered me my double rate (which I doubled before telling him my cost) to shovel two tracks and the berm at the end of his drive.

He said I have a four wheel drive and I just need to get out and you can finish the job later. To which I agreed. I was going to make a shit load of money, YIPPY.

I finished his job and returned home to check in and maybe have quick cup of tea with my mom before she went to work.

Back out into the winter wonderland I went.