A funny thing happened on the way down the driveway...

Like "It's Expensive to be Poor," for time!

We’ve been pressed for time for as long as I can remember. That’s like 10 this morning but I’m informed by reliable sources it significantly predates that time. This comes up in a lot of ways, usually when something preventable has just gone wrong. The incident takes a significant amount of time to resolve - much more than the preventative steps would have taken, if I’d only known you need to take them. In most cases you knew you *ought* to have taken those preventative steps, but at the time the cost in invested time multiplied by the probability they would come in handy was too large. Even very small, quick steps add up to a significant amount of time. And when your time budget is already over-spent at all times, these preventative measures just fizzle almost universally. So you get a situation like we had today.

A friend was here to help us out this morning because our time is so uh… shall we say spread thin. After a good couple hours of help, they tried to be on their merry way with what is I’m sure a very full life of their own. Halfway down the driveway, the car exited stage right, into a ditch.

We tried, first with gas and pushing, then with shovels and sand, then with carpets and cardboard and more gas. We succeeded in drifting it several feet further into the ditch before giving up and calling a tow truck. At great expense and after two hours of driveway blockage, the car was retrieved relatively unharmed aside from soiled carpets.

But wait, you say, why was your driveway such a mess? F#@$%^$!

Lets review the steps we ought to have taken before snow socked us in, late November.

• Arranging for a plow truck? Ok but there are ditches and a septic field that we need to protect. We’ll need those poles marking the driveway. To install those, I needed a new cordless drill, and mine conveniently crapped out this fall. So I got a new one, but not in time. Now I need a masonry bit long and tough enough to drill frozen soil. Which I’m getting in like three days. And the poles, which were sold out when I tried to find them after the early snow.

Clearing your own driveway? Sure! Why don’t I get a snowblow—

Aha one step ahead! It’s almost like I knew that and was trying to get to them. But wait, what’s that sound?

Oh that belt. I am told it is bad when they look like that. Snoblow no go. Three days of effort towards clearing the driveway down the drain. Which is why I’ve been shoveling it by hand. For all four of the snowstorms since Thanksgiving.

Anyway, after consulting with the local wise men, I’m sure this just means I’m supposed to have a tractor.