A Blessing, and NOT in disguise

After three folks including Marash Girl shoveled for an hour each, three times on this past Wednesday, the day of the big snowstorm, Marash Girl woke up on Thursday morning to find her driveway blocked, the opening to the street at the end of her driveway piled high with snow -- and not only snow, but all of the icy mass that had collected on the end of her little dead end street had dead ended onto the opening at the end of her driveway. The street plow had found a convenient spot to unload its burden.  Not fair!  As they used to say at the Harvard-Radcliffe Armenian Club, Vaht to do?  

(see http://marashgirl.blogspot.com/2011/01/vaht-to-do.html)

Marash Girl grabbed a shovel, ignoring her lower back which was screaming out in protest, and headed out to reshovel out her car's pathway to the street . . . But what should she find, right where the driveway ends at the street, but a bucket loader with its hoe perched two feet from her driveway.  Hmmmm . . . Next in the saga -- a young man from the city was leaning on a shovel which was perched onto the snow pile right next to Marash Girl's driveway -- Starting a conversation with the fellow, Marash Girl learned that the City had sent these burly young men to clear the openings to the storm grates so that the street would not flood.

Thinking quickly, Marash Girl, grinning, quipped, "Oh, did you know that there's a grate right beneath this pile of snow at the end of my driveway?"

The young man took two (heavy) shovelfuls, returning Marash Girl's grin, pointed to the driver of the front loader who, in two swift strokes of his machine, cleared the driveway.  All that was left was for Marash Girl to shovel up were a few small piles of iced snow (which she dutifully threw into the bucket of the bucket loader) as she thanked the Good Lord and the Good Men . . .