I was born this way

I’ve always been a girlie girl, a princess to the core. I partially blame my somewhat spoiled upbringing for my ineptitude when it comes to manual labor. You know what I mean, “man’s work”.

This has been the winter that “man’s work” kicked my ass.

Bill left me alone (with the boys) for 6 days so that he could go to Orlando. Totally not fair, right?!? Ok, I’m leaving the part out where he was down there for a business conference, not to see Mickey Mouse. On one of the evenings he was away I had to take the trash out…”man’s work”. There I went, pulling the 96 gallon trashcan behind me down the GIANT hill I live on. All was well until I hit a patch of ice. To this day I really have no clue how I stayed on my feet, I thought for sure I was going to end up skidding down the driveway…on my face. I’m sure the people driving by probably got a good laugh at my expense as I skated down the hill looking like Bambi on ice.

The trash must have known Bill was away and was out to get me that week. I woke up the next morning to find my recycle bin had been knocked over, spilling it’s contents across the bottom of my driveway and all over the road. Nothing wakes you up like picking up trash on the side of the road, on a freezing cold morning, during rush hour. Good times!

Fast forward to the next big snow storm.

Bill was home, so that much was good, but he was clearing snow at work. This time my Dad was away, so when Bill was done with work he had to come home and get us cleaned out, then go dig my Mom out. I was feeling pretty bad about being inside not doing anything when there was so much work to be done, so I bundled up and went to try my luck with the snowblower.

Normally I wouldn’t feel bad enough to go out, but Bill had an abnormally crappy morning involving a car fire in his parking lot (thankfully not his car), ice skating firemen, and grumpy police.

Back to my disaster.

After a lot of trying to get the snowblower started (I still don’t understand why they can’t use a key like my car does), I got moving. I quickly found out that trying to go down the hill was a REALLY bad idea as I was pulled, against my will, towards the road. I remember thinking, “Ok, if I can at least do the top of the driveway then. Something is better than nothing, right?” I would find out later just how wrong I was.

With a driveway the size of mine, there seemed to be two options for moving the snow. 1) I can blow it over the space I had already cleared, or 2) I could blow it on top of the 18″+ I need to clean. What I didn’t know was that the snow I was blowing would pretty much turn to cement where ever it landed. Let’s just say it would have been better for all parties involved if I had just stayed inside drinking hot cocoa.

I made a colossal mess of our driveway, and it wasn’t going away until it melted. Nothing like a constant reminder of my inability to properly operate a snowblower. Not only did I have my visual reminder to chip away at my self-esteem, I had some hell of a physical reminder too.

I had used a snowblower before (seemingly in another life), but never one this big. We have a granddaddy monster of a machine. While I am so grateful to my in laws for the practical gift, I wish they had also gotten us a guy to come use it, kind of like the pool boy of the winter. It is in no way an exaggeration when say I was sore for two weeks. I don’t mean the good sore like you just had a good workout. I mean the so sore you wish for death. So sore you feel like your limbs are going to jump off your body, beat you for what you’ve done to them, then run away. So sore that it hurt to breathe, let alone get dressed.

I hope that Bill finds my inability to take part in manual labor as an endearing quality. I’m pretty sure he knew I was useless when I had that muscle spasm in my arm causing me to roll my paint roller right over a light switch. He never did let me pick up a roller again.

I try, and I guess that’s the most important part. At least that’s what I tell myself.

Are you the anti- Handy Manny like me? Please help me feel better by telling me about it! MyLifeInMommyland@me.com

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