So, for the umpteenth time this winter, it snowed again. No biggie, just a four to six inch dusting on top of the forty-five to fifty inches we’ve already been blessed with. My forty-five minute drive home from work took an hour and twenty minutes. Still no biggie. When I tried to park my car on the street, the fun began.
I had to park across the street, thanks to our fine city ordinance of alternate overnight parking. I got stuck, due to my car’s stylishly low ground clearance, and had to shovel a considerable amount of the street. Still no luck. Residential side streets are a low priority when it comes to thorough plowing and our street has a solid layer of ice one to two inches thick on most of it. The constant spinning of my tires apparently turned the ice into polished glass and I was going nowhere fast. I had to get my ice chopper and dig down to concrete around my tires. I finally got my car legally parked and it only took half an hour.
Before I go any further, I should mention I just finished a twelve hour shift and have been up since 1:45 am. I dug out all around my car to give me a head start for tomorrow, because I was going to work another twelve and had to get up early again. Cindy came out and we tackled our sidewalk and driveway. Through the magic of wind patterns, we always seem to have twice as much snow as they claim has fallen. After finishing, oh, did I mention it was still snowing? So, finishing is a relative term. After we finished the first round of shoveling, we went in and had supper. We both had eight hundred milligrams of Ibuprofen for dessert.
Fully refreshed after an hour of rest since shoveling, I went to my mother’s house to dig her out. Did I tell you she has a corner lot with one hundred and sixty feet of sidewalk? Oh, I should also mention she has another house across the street with the same size sidewalk. It was her mother’s house. When Grandma fell and broke her hip, Mom and Dad moved in to live with her. After Grandma passed on, they decided to stay in her house and their house has been sitting empty for over ten years now. Dad joined Grandma about five years ago and guess who ends up over there helping whenever something needs to be done?
When I am lucky, one of the Good Samaritan neighbors snow-blows one or the other lot. This time three of the four sidewalks were done about an hour before I got there, so the snow was only about an inch deep. The other one had about six inches on it. I decided not to drag out Grandpa’s old snow-blower and did it by hand. That old blower has no guts and is almost as much work as shoveling. Keep in mind, Grandpa went to his reward back in 1993, so the snow-blower is old.
While shoveling by the abandoned house, I had a talk with the next-door neighbor who was also out shoveling, “You should get that gas leak checked,” I said.
The last time we were over shoveling, about three or four days ago, Cindy and I smelled gas and figured it was coming from their house since their meter is between the two houses and my mom’s house had the gas and electric shut off. We didn’t see anyone around, so we didn’t pursue the matter since the smell wasn’t too strong, but this time it was very strong.
He thought he smelled something, but wasn’t sure and thanked me for saying something. His mother immediately called the gas company. I finished the sidewalks and went to have a few words with my mom before heading home and to bed. 1:45 am comes pretty fast. Suddenly, there was a knock at the door. It was the guy from the gas company.
“Do you own that house across the street?” he asked.
“My mother does, why?”
“The gas is coming from your house.”
“It can’t be,” I assured him, “the gas is turned off.”
“It is now. I just shut it off and locked it out. We need to get in there. I put my probe inside the mail slot and it went crazy. That house is full of gas.”
“I’ll get the keys,” I told him as he went back across the street.
“Mom, I need the keys.”
“I don’t know where they are.”
“They have to get inside, if you don’t find them, they’re going to break down the door.”
After running back and forth, looking like an idiot, four times trying different sets of keys, I finally got the door unlocked. I opened the door and took one step in. Holy Crap! The gas was so strong, I almost keeled over.
“Get out of there,” the gas guy said. He stuck the probe in and it sounded like a Geiger counter at Chernobyl. He said, “If the electricity had been on, this would be a parking lot right now.”
We went around back and after many tries, I found the key for the back door and opened it. The house had to be vented and the gas guy called the fire department. Two fire trucks and eight firemen later, the house was vented using air tanks, masks and explosion-proof fans. The house was now safe.
The firemen left and the gas guy took me into the basement to show me the culprit. There he showed me the water heater. One of the legs had rotted off and the heater tipped. In doing so, it busted the gas pipe open and gas had been spewing out unabated for God only knows how long.
Mom assured me once again the gas was shut off and showed me the last two month’s gas bills. December only used four therms and January used five.
“Mom, if it uses any therms, that means the gas is still on!”
“Well, I thought it was off.”
I can’t wait to see next month’s bill!
When I got home, I told Cindy the whole sordid saga. She was shocked and amazed.
She said, “If it had blown up, we wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore.”
It wasn’t the best solution to our problem, but I agreed.
I went to bed at 9:30 pm. I seriously considered not going into work early, since I was only going to get four hours sleep, but I had just told the third shift boss I was a reliable employee and would be there at 3 am, so there was no way I wasn’t going in early.
I got up extra early at 1:30 am, in case my car was plowed in. When the alarm went off, I couldn’t move. My arms wouldn’t work. I had to roll myself out of bed. I looked out the window. The plows did not go through yet. Good, or so I thought.
Oh, no! The guy across the street snow-blowed his sidewalk and buried the curb side of my car under snow. And all the shoveling I did in front of my car was under a foot of snow. I started shoveling like a mad man. The car wouldn’t budge. More shoveling. I drove forward a few feet and got stuck. More shoveling and I drove a few more feet. Now I'm stuck diagonally in the middle of the street. How am I going to get to work when I can’t get off my block? Should I wake up Cindy and ask her to push? Not a good idea.
I decided to leave the car running in reverse, then I got out and pushed the car backwards. That also turned out to not be a good idea. It took hold and started driving back without me and going much faster than I anticipated. I immediately regretted my decision and also regretted that I had closed the door. I ran to catch up with it before it hit the snow bank, got the door open and shot my leg in through the doorway hoping to hit the brake pedal in the dark rather than the gas pedal. The car stopped just in time. After much more shoveling and spinning of tires, I managed to get the car back into the middle of the street. I drove backwards until I got stuck. More shoveling.
I finally got it into my driveway and seriously thought about staying right there and going back to bed, but of course, good old, reliable Dan couldn’t do that, so I shoveled out a generous portion of my street once again, backed the car onto the road and actually got it to go forward toward the end of our block which had a huge snow bank across it from the plows clearing the main road. There was no way I was stopping for the stop sign. I hit the snow bank full blast hoping there wasn’t anyone else stupid enough to be out driving at 2 am in my neighborhood. There wasn’t.
I actually made it to work with ten minutes to spare. I was exhausted and hoped it would be slow so I could catch some sleep up in the crane. Instead, at 4 am, I decided to write this stupid story.