It's not my fault

So, it's been a while. Oh I haven't forgotten about you, there just isn't enough time in the day. There is so much stuff I wanted to tell y'all about. I just couldn't get around to it.    I did run into something the other day so I thought I'd bring out the festivus pole for the airing of the grievances.  I know I'm out of season but, what the hell.

I'm in trouble again.  I know it's hard to believe but it's true   I don't think it's fair.  No really, this isn't my fault. I'm the aggrieved party here. So why am I the one in the dog house?

Anyway, last Thursday night my flight manages to slip into the airport during a lull in the snow.  The ride home from the airport stunk, but the important point to remember is, I got home.    I mean there were cars and trucks off the road the whole ride home.  It was going to be a bad couple of days.  The weather report was calling for over a foot of snow. But for me it was no harm no foul. I made it and that's all I cared about.  As a matter of fact I was so up beat about being home I took everyone out for pizza.  Oh sure it was 11:00 pm but what the heck, it's always a good time for pizza.

I get up Friday morning and there is a foot of heavy waterlogged snow freezing to the driveway.  I went in to see if Dan the Man had school.  It hadn't been canceled so I had no choice but to clear the driveway. Now mind you, my driveway to 350 feet long. It's no small task to clear it.  I roused Dan from bed and together we went to work.  I was manning the tractor, Dan the snowblower.  It took just over an hour but between the two of us we managed to clear the snow so that Dan could get to school and I work. The ride to work is a story in and of itself.  Maybe I'll discuss that later.  Anyway, Dan made class on time and I got to the office in time for lunch.  Me and just one other person.

So I work all day.  There may have been no one in the office but I had plenty to do. I didn't leave until 7:30 pm. Just before I did I got a call.  It was Lisa asking me to pick up milk (how cliche). Her rational was, the roads were treacherous she didn't want to leave the house and since I was already out, well I might as well get some milk.

Anyhow, it's 8:00 when I drive past the house. The snow stopped at 3:00 and it's 50 degrees out.  The roads are down to wet pavement.  The ride that had taken over 2 hours in the morning was completed in 20 minutes.  I decided to get the milk at the convenience store at the end of my road. As I a pass the driveway I espy a set of headlights.  I stop to see what was going on.  When I do Dangerous Dan the Man comes running up and tells me his car is stuck and asks for help.  Forgoing the milk I pulled into the end of the driveway and got out of the truck.  There was Dan's car diagonally across the driveway and headed into the woods.  He tells me he's been an hour trying to get his car out of the yard.  Cait is in the car.  Apparently she is trying to drive while Dan  shovels and pushes.  I make comment about the brilliance of this plan and tell the two of them to hold on while I go get the tractor.  I head for the house and notice that there is at least a foot if not more of heavy wet snow in the driveway.  No wonder this kid got stuck, SIX times.

So I go get the tractor and set about clearing the driveway.  It takes about 45 minutes to get the car unstuck and the driveway clear enough to get the car out.  This is another story that I'll get into later.  What I will say is, I got my truck stuck trying to get it out of the way so we could get Dan's car out.  When we finally freed Dan's car he drove out of the driveway and into the night without even slowing down, leaving me to free my truck by myself.

I freed my truck and spent another 45 minutes clearing the rest of the driveway.   By now its almost 10:00.  I'm cold, I'm wet, I'm tired and I'm hungry.  I go into the house and nothing.  No dinner, no hot drink, not even a cold drink.  Cait is watching TV on the couch and Lisa is upstairs doing the same.

I went to the bottom of the stairs and called up.  "L I I I S a a h h, oh L e e e s s s a a a,  are you up  there?"  I heard some rustling then the response " WHAT?, I'm trying to watch TV".  I asked "why wasn't the driveway cleared?" Lisa responds "WHAT?"  I rephrased my question. "Why wasn't the driveway cleared?" Lisa responded "I don't know."  To which I said "was Dan home all afternoon?"  The answer from upstairs was a resounding "yes".  Which prompted me to ask "so why didn't you tell him to clear the driveway?" Lisa, now sounding very irritated responded "I don't know, I didn't think of it.  I was working from home all day."  To which I responded " so let me get this straight, you knew there was so much snow outside that you couldn't get out of the driveway and the roads were bad so you called me to get milk because you didn't want to risk driving.  Inside the house all afternoon was my 22 year old athletic, soccer playing, weigh lifting, body building, go to the gym 5 days a week, health food eating, my body is a temple son sitting around watching TV so you decided to leave the snow removal for a 55 year old, over weight, out of shape, half blind, brain tumor bad heart, plastic valve, high blood pressure, bad back guy that's not supposed,to be lifting anything heavy or doing anything strenuous?" To which she replies "I didn't think of it, I worked all day."  Being the dopo jejo I can be, I didn't  let it drop.  I couldn't.  I responded "I feel so bad for you.  I got up at 6:00 this morning so I could get Dan out to school. I took care of a foot of snow before I went to work.  I drove over two hours up to Marlborough while you just sat in the house and I worked until after 7:30. When I got home after 8:00 I then had to spend the next two hours getting Dans car unstuck and clearing the driveway all the while you are still just sitting in the house."  Now she's mad.  You could hear it in her voice.  The response from upstairs was a resounding "Oh yeah that's right you ALWAYs work harder that I do."  Somehow that admission didn't seem very genuine.  So I yelled upstairs "so why didn't you have the driveway cleared?"  She's now reaching the end of her tolerance with this conversation.  It was obvious. She yelled back  " because Dan was sleeping all afternoon and I didn't want to wake him."  Not knowing when to quit I responded "Oh thats just great, the young healthy guy can sleep all afternoon and the sickly old guy gets to plow this heavy wet snow all night by myself."  The voice from upstairs bellowed "I'M SORRY I FORGOT, I DIDN'T THINK OF IT."  to which  I retaliated "No, you didn't think of it, but you did think to call me for milk because it was too treacherous for any of you to go out."  Again the a disembodied voice echoed from upstairs " Seriously, you're mad that you had to get milk, you were out anyway what's the big deal?" to which I yell back "yeah, why is it too dangerous for everyone else but ok for me to drive around on the treacherous roads just for milk and why wasn't the driveway done?"  Again the voice bellowed "I'm sorry I forgot to ask Dan to take care of the driveway, what about the milk?"  At this point I was done with this debate I yelled back "I don't even care about Dan or the milk, we're supposed to have a TRUCK come PLOW the driveway."

But that's not why I'm in trouble.

Saturday morning rolls around.  I'm up at about 7:00 and I go to the ole double D for a cup of coffee.  About 11:00 the Empress staggers out of bed.  She stumbles down stairs,and totters over to the coffee pot. She puts her coffee together and starts the pot. She practically falls over to the fridge and opens the door.  She rummages around for a little bit then clambers back out of the fridge and closes the door.  She looks over at the counter and spots my empty DD cup. She then puts her hand on the counter to brace herself looks at me and says.

"WHERE'S THE MILK?"

I responded "what milk?"

Was that bad?