They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha Ha...

Okay. Just spent the past hour and a half shoveling my driveway.

Again.

Why, you ask, did Jay shovel the 6" of snow off his driveway rather than use the 25HP lawn tractor with 46" snowthrower attachment? Was it broken? Out of gas? Being used by Dad G. (the rightful owner)?

No. I shoveled my driveway by hand because the snowthrower doesn't pack the snow into a snow fort... The horrors we invite upon ourselves in the interest of making our children happy... Rather than take the easy, mechanized way out, I fell back on the tried-and-true method of snow removal via pure brute force.

All to make sure my kids had a snow fort that would be the envy of the neighborhood...

Sometimes a dad's gotta do what a dad's gotta do. If that means a little elbow grease instead of the easy way out, well, hell. It's a good workout. That's how I look at it. And now, instead of having a sterile, perfectly clean driveway with straight-lined edges, we have ragged shovel marks. And five feet of packed snow fort walls along the entire driveway.

And two ecstatically happy children, who showed their appreciation by raining snowballs down on their hapless father while he finished shoveling. Naturally, they received several shovels of snow catapulted back at them - I may be an old softie, but I'm not above retaliation...

That is all.