Tikkabik

I think I'm finally consigned to living in a cold weather climate indefinitely, because I've invested in a new snowblower. We bought one on sale at Sears on Monday night (Mom picked it up because Bonnie and I were otherwise indisposed, and she has a pickup truck), and I put it together shortly after getting off the truck (boy, it's big).

It's quite a nice model -- 5.5 horsepower, 24-inch wide scoop with a 21-inch rise, electric start, five forward speeds and two reverse speeds. Sears was having a sale and we got 10 percent more off besides, after haggling a bit (thanks for doing the dirty work, Mom).

It's a big relief. I totally dread snowstorms: My arms turn to spaghetti and I end up coming back in totally spent -- sometimes I'm unable to get back to work right away because my arms don't work right. And with the Frickin' Van finally gone once and for all, I've reclaimed about 1/4 of the driveway. That's just more to shovel.

The other big problem is clearing the end of the driveway, which, during a serious snowstorm, can easily get a pile a foot or two deep and yards wide, thanks to the passing snowplows. When you've spent half an hour just getting to the end of the driveway then find a few yards of slush-caked snow to deal with, you want to kill yourself, especially as it starts cracking the shovel.

And, of course, we live on what the U.S. Postal Service defines as a "rural route" (along with the rest of the town of Mashpee), so we have to clear out space for the mail deliverer to reach our mailbox. Each winter we get a helpful postcard from the U.S.P.S. showing us the proper shape of the clearance (a wide arc) and the approximate distance from the mailbox we're supposed to clear.

And then there's the gravel. We haven't yet paved the driveway, so shoveling means pulling up pounds of pea-sized stones every winter and dumping them into the foliage and the yard, then trying to rake that crap back into the driveway each spring.

The snowblower we got has risers on the bottom of the scoop that lift it up slightly, so picking up rocks shouldn't be a major issue. I might go back and pick up chains for it to make sure it doesn't get stuck in the snow. That would suck.

My next door neighbor on one side has a snowblower, but he tends to leave early in the morning and won't help me clear the driveway unless there's a lot of snow and he sees that I'm ready to have a stroke (I don't blame him -- I probably wouldn't bother either, though we get along well enough otherwise).

Anyway, when we first started shopping I told the guy in Sears, "I wanna be guaranteed we won't have any snow this year so I'm interested in buying a snowplow."

"Well, if we don't sell you one, I'm gonna figure out where you live," he told me. "Then after the first blizzard I'm going to call your neighbors and tell them it's your fault."