An open letter to my husband_

Dear Husband:

This is an open letter DEMANDING you purchase a snow-blower for our anniversary THIS YEAR.

Remember how once I asked why we didn’t own one and you said it was wasteful because it doesn’t really snow enough to really get our investment’s worth?!

I’d like to bring forth the following evidence from the repressed (note: NOT suppressed) memories of our marriage life together:

REMEMBER three years ago when we had that ginormous dumping of snow and I MISSED FINALS and had to take them from home (good thing the internet didn’t falter out) and you SWORE that was a FREAK storm and never really happened before? 

REMEMBER when you told me that years had passed that required little or no shoveling during the winter months?

REMEMBER that I have already shoveled on TWO OTHER OCCASSIONS (now THREE counting today) this winter alone?

REMEMBER that I have a bad knee and must therefore use my back while shoveling?

REMEMBER the evil snowy time when Juno was cut by the snow demons and had to be rushed to VCA and almost side-swiped the van and the snow laughed?

REMEMBER the evil snowy time BUDDY (RIP) was stolen and probably eaten by the same snow demons and we never saw him again and I cried and I still do sometimes and the snow laughed?

While I shoveled the driveway (the first time) today, the neighbor across the street (that sort of looks a little like John Shank) was out with his snow blower.  As I grunted, sweated, and gritted my teeth (I think I have lockjaw now) he casually pushed his little contraption around.  My hands are shaky and calloused and his are probably baby-soft and tender, like pats of butter melting on top of a hot potato.  While I lifted icy chunks bigger than my head, our neighbor’s little machine gnawed on them and spit them out into neat little piles along the side of his driveway. He fluidly waved with a free hand and all I could do was nod my head at him because my hands were stuck in a vice like grip on the shovel handle.  I craved a break, a drink of water, a crust of bread, but I had to press on.  Meanwhile, our neighbor pushed his snow-blower around while sipping a cup of tea. 

A cup of fucking tea, Brian.  Come on.  Isn’t that very reason ALONE to get a snowblower?

I feel cheated and lied too.  You seduced me, an unassuming desert rat flatlander with Carribbean-blood and an affinity for all things warm, with your whimsical tales of snowless winters and sunny skies.  Not just you either, all your mountain friends are guilty too.  No one pulled me aside  before the wedding and said, “Hey Connie, you might want to rethink this.  Brian hasn’t been honest with you about Big Bear.  It’s a snowy hell.  It’s a torrent of evil powder and will wither your soul away into Satan’s icy nether regions.”  No one wrote anything like that on our guest book—but perhaps I should have seen it coming since our guest book was a TOBAGGON.

This is not a separation letter, but unless you want me to spend 5-6 months of the year sleeping in the Pacific Review/Ghost Town office at CSUSB, I am DEMANDING payment in full of a new/used snow-blower/mini-snow plow/snow-stabbing machine.  And don’t try to bribe me off this matter with a new dog.  Unless it is an Afghan. Or a Greyhound. Or a Pomeranian.  Or any dog that can walk on its hind legs and has thumbs and can therefore hold and USE a shovel and help me get rid of all this damn snow.

I hope you are having a good day at work.

Love always,

Wife

P.S. Unless this is all just a passive-aggressive weight comment and you think I am fat and can use the exercise and that is why I do much of the shoveling….  That’s what this is all about, isn’t it?  Well too bad.  It’s so COLD here that I need the extra fat to keep warm and stave off frost-bite, especially while I'm out there shoveling long hours in the windy cold air, the very breath from the snow demons laughter.  Which brings me back to the point of this letter.