I still get excited and nostalgic about snow, but I am now the dad and I have to do things like shovel snow, make sure cars that aren’t in the garage are cleaned off and ready to go, and generally take care of all the girls who live in my house. 

My boys – neither one of them strangers to a snow shovel – now live away and aren’t here to help me. Do you feel sorry for me?

We had friends with cool toys when I was a kid and much like our fortunate friends who had snow mobiles, I now have a fortunate friend who has a snow blower. Being the selfless and charitable friend he is, he came to my house and blew off my driveway. I was very thankful and even with all the snow we had the last few days, I had to only scrape a little snow here and there, plus use the push broom a bit.   

But before that, and soon after the snowstorm, the snowplow started coming through our neighborhood, trying its best to plow and push the treachery away from the pavement.  

My idea to move our daughter’s car off the street came a little too late, and so the result of my tardiness was her car being surrounded by  natural and man-made drifts of snow – mounded even higher after a few snow plow passes.  

So, off I went to dig her out a bit so she would be able to drive to school the next day.  I was able to get her car up onto the much cleaner and more accessible driveway, where she continued parking each day.  She’s a smart cookie.

After removing her car from the drift, we were left with quite an impressive  and unusually tall parapet in front of our house. You can picture it because some of you had the same thing in front of your house. 

I know because I drove by.

In order to keep the path to the garage clear, the only place for me to park my elderly truck was, you guessed it, the street.  

This is not good. You see, the large mound of snow was now icy and hard and it’s nearly impossible (at least in my mind) to shovel it all away. I prefer to wait for the promised 57 degrees this week. Terribly lazy, I know.

For the time being, I decided to drive to the cul-de-sac and barrel into the snow bank to park. In the morning, I would reverse until I got onto the clean edge of the driveway, turn my wheels, and off I’d go.

Good strategy… all to avoid shoveling snow.

On the morning of the snow escape, I hopped in the truck and prepared to back up. All was fine and I backed a little farther than I meant to. Still no problem, but I did notice the back end of my truck got into the next door neighbor’s street drift. Or so I thought.

I put the truck into drive and realized I was getting no traction. I had clearly noticed there should have been plenty of room to back out without any hindrance of snow and apparently the neighbor had better luck with the snowplow because their drift couldn’t hold a candle to ours. Even after the required rocking back and forth and reverse to drive to reverse to drive do-si-do, there was still no traction to be had.

I hopped out of the truck, steaming and with an alphabet of cuss words in my head. The snow I thought I felt on the back end of my truck was not snow at all. It was our trash can.

Yes, I had knocked into our trash can, previously positioned there before I got into the truck. The can had made a graceful and lovely dive onto its side, making not a sound, and was now wedged beautifully under the bumper of the truck.

There was just enough snow and ice left on the edge of the driveway as to raise the trash can just enough to hold my bumper a few inches in the air. Just enough so that my tires were not getting traction.

You would think it would be terribly easy to free a wedged trash can from under a truck bumper.  

Not so. I used my sledgehammer. I jumped on top of the trash can until my hip began to hurt.  I did everything but point my finger and summon magical powers. Nothing was working.  

I summoned my sweet wife, who didn’t know what she was getting into.  I was already fairly demon-possessed with anger and so her comments that began with “why can’t you” and “that’s not going to help” were not met with favorable retorts.

My request that she get in the truck and “gun it” didn’t have good results either, and so I was walking the fine line of crazed rage by the time my good-hearted neighbor came by, walking his dog. I had already tried pushing the back of the truck off the can myself, while my wife tried her version of “gunning it.” No luck.

Speaking of neighbors.  Well, I sure as heck hope at least one of them was watching. In retrospect, the scene was just too darned funny to miss.

It only took a couple of pushes when my younger, stronger and more capable neighbor took pity on me.  Even with my wife on the gas pedal, we managed to get the bumper off the can.  

Red-faced, I thanked my neighbor and looked sheepishly at my wife, who walked purposefully into the house, trying to remove herself from the scene before my feeble attempt to apologize.  

After about an hour, which included an apologetic text to my poor wife, I was safely at school, demons exorcised, laughing my patootie off about the morning’s events.

So, that’s my “stuck in the snow” story, even though the “snow” was dark green, had a lid and contained three Hefty bags and a couple of pizza boxes.

I’ve had enough of winter.  How about you?

I appreciate your emails!  It’s always fun to hear from you. Feel free to shoot me a message at marksremarks10@gmail.com.