December 21, 2009
Might as well complain.
So here we are, Saturday morning, in the middle of the biggest snowfall the area's gotten since I moved here in 2005. The weathercritters said 10"–20" and they weren't kidding. It took me an hour to shovel my driveway and sidewalk, 20 seconds to get the car stuck in the middle of the street, and another 25 minutes to get it back in the garage. My plans for the day? Not happening.
And that's a problem: I'd planned on going to Next Day Blinds today -- the blinds on the windows here have been beat to hell -- and picking them up tomorrow so I could install them before I left for Christmas. (That way the place doesn't look like a shithole when people show up on the first.)
Well, since the useless city I live in* can't get the plow trucks out even though it started snowing 12 hours ago, that's been canceled. Which means I might make it out tomorrow, but they don't deliver on Mondays and Tuesdays. And I leave Wednesday and return Sunday. Which means that they're going to sit at the shop for a week and I'll have three days to install it all if I'm lucky.
Yeah, just a tiny bit pissed about that.
And of course there's the fact that I thought I could do my grocery shopping today, living in a first-world country and all. Looks like it's candy bars and roasted peanuts for breakfast, and a TV dinner for lunch. Whee.
At least I got TV and internet last weekend, 'cause if they had to come out today it wouldn't happen.
Edit, Sunday 9:30 AM: 38+ hours since the snow started and 14+ since it ended, and still no plows. Fuck you, Manassas Park.
Edit, Sunday 11:10 AM: Poked my head out the window to see who else was shoveling, and saw a plow truck go by. So apparently my average wait in inclement weather is going to be about 40 hours. Of course, they only did the other side of the street, so if I want to go anywhere I have to shovel 10 feet past the end of my driveway.
Edit, Wednesday morning: Hm, kind of had a fire-and-forget moment on this one. In fairness, they did plow a second time Sunday afternoon and I was able to get back out of my driveway... about 41 hours after the snow began. Too late to get much of anything that I'd planned for the weekend accomplished though. Then they came by Monday during the day and plowed down to the asphalt, so I got to dig myself in this time. But now we're starting to get some melt-off and the sky's been clear. We're pretty much back to normal now.
* The city is also too cheap to run a credit check when you sign up for water service. So instead of passing the $20 on as part of the hookup fee, you have to show up in person with your settlement statement in order to turn on the water. So if you close on a Friday afternoon, like I did, you'll get water Monday afternoon at the absolute earliest. Manassas Park: Don't move here.
