On Thin Ice
There is an inner circle of hell reserved for people who do not shovel their sidewalk. Either that, or there truly is no justice in this world. Or, more accurately, the hereafter.
This week hasn't been pretty. Or stable, for that matter. Monday morning was like someone had poured a bucket of water on the city and then waved a magic freezing wand over everything. The place was literally a skating rink. I barely made it down my street alive, and then I spent the next half hour praying that I'd make it to work. I had several conversations with God, but I was so concerned with my own fate that I neglected to mention the fate of the assholes who did not properly shovel their driveways and sidewalks. After this week though, I'd reconsider and probably include a brief request to have them forced to take over for Sisyphus. Only make Sisyphus's little uphill climb covered in a nice thick sheet of ice.
Here's the thing that gets me: the ice that I've slid on all this week isn't from this week. Fuck, it isn't even from this year. The last time we got serious snow was on New Year's Eve. In 2008. And yet, nobody made a move to fully clear their walkways, and so now that it's not getting that warm, we're in this vicious cycle: during the day, it's just slightly warm enough that you're walking through slush, and then the slush freezes overnight and into the morning. Basically, the hours when most people are walking around the city - morning and evening commute - are a safety hazard. And yet, nobody does anything.
What I do not understand is why people don't use some of the daytime hours to make sure that they clear the slush to the side. Actually, that's wrong. I do understand why. It's because people are selfish assholes who don't care about anybody else, and therefore, they don't care that anyone who tries to walk by their house will be risking their life, or at least their limbs. This is why it's not enough to just get aggravated and chalk it up to a nasty winter. It's not a nasty winter that's making me slip and slide. It's nasty people. It's nasty, rotten people.
I know this to be true because there are some parts of this city, I swear, where I haven't had to hold my breath, fearing that one false step will result in a black and blue road map, shattered bones, or permanent paralysis. Sadly, there's about one block of safety for every 50 of pure treachery, which basically means that I'm going to be in altering states of trepidation, anger, and desperate prayer between now and April. Constantly. This doesn't seem fair.
I've thought about what can be done. They have this hotline in my town where you can call and leave a message about your snow problem, because nobody actually ever answers the phone - probably because they either know what everyone's already going to say or they're unable to reach the phone because they're strung up in a hospital bed after trying to walk to work. Either way, you're left to just leave a message with your complaint, and you can either wait for someone to return your call and address your concerns, or you can wait for hell to freeze over. I'm doing the second, because I'm hoping that these hotline creators and their supporters, the non-shovelers, end up there.
So, I've left a few messages. That hasn't worked. I've heard of people talking to the police officers, who all shrug and share their tales of terror as they've fallen helping people get up from falls they've taken. Very helpful.
Clearly, the conventional method of talking to the people in charge won't work. This isn't very surprising, but it's upsetting nonetheless, and it made me try to think of other solutions. I thought about why people weren't shoveling. Obviously, like I said, they don't care about others' safety. That's the reasoning behind having to shovel in the first place. But the reason people don't do it is because they don't get in trouble if they don't. See, let's say you're not supposed to park on a particular street because it is a pain in the ass for the people who live on that street. This happens all the time, and people obey this rule not because they want to respect the street and the spaces as resident parking, but because they know that if they do park there illegally, they're going to get a ticket or get towed. People obey rules if they fear getting caught and having to face consequences, especially monetary. Or jail time.
While I personally am an advocate of sentencing non-shovelers to jail, preferably with an iced floor, I realize this isn't feasible. I do know people can be held accountable and be fined by the town if they don't shovel, but according to several sources in my town, the snow department is severely understaffed and everyone who's part of it has to work plows, so they don't have people to go around and make sure everything is shoveled. This was the explanation from some person in the town manager's office, because there, they answer the phones thinking I'm calling to invite the town manager to some bullshit PTA or town council gala. Fools.
Anyway, the person on the phone was pretty surprised when I next asked about their meter maid staffing. The two aren't related, according to the town, which is yet another reason why the people in charge are completely inept and I should run the world. Here's what I think: the town always makes sure that people are paying their meters, no matter what. People are constantly getting and fighting tickets over meters. I see meter maids patrolling the streets every single day. So my idea is, include snow removal tickets as part of the meter maid's job responsibilities. These people are your best testers, since their job is to walk around the city! They are already doing what the job requires - all you're really doing is adding one more thing to their domain of control, which meter maids love. Plus, the ice affects their safety, so they're also making the job safer for them. And, if you're not worrying about falling with every step, you probably can move a lot faster and snag a lot more meter violators. I think my plan is ingenious, and it would probably take about a half day of training at meter maid orientation to get everything up and running.
I mentioned this idea to the woman on the phone, who told me that's not the purpose of meter maids. I suppressed the urge to tell her that I have yet to figure out what the fuck the town manager does in my town, because as far as I can see, his management skills are bullshit. Instead I politely hung up.
This was Thursday.
Today I walked to work. Actually, no. I stepped to work. One baby step at a time, I gingerly walked up one of the most main streets in my town. There were blocks of completely unshoveled ice. I half-expected a hot chocolate bar and skate rental at the street corner. I caught a few branches in my face because I was so focused on looking down at my feet and making sure that I found the quarter-inch square of dry concrete to step on before I made my next move. There's this Price Is Right game where the contestant has to step on a giant number board in the order that spells out the price of a car. The squares aren't that small, but people always look awkward on them and they pause before they make any move and sometimes they lose their balance a little and have to sort-of shimmy back on balance on their square or else they risk falling and moving to the wrong square by mistake. This is what it was like to walk to work. Only my prize was arriving at my job, not winning a car.
This was obviously very upsetting, and it made me think about those controversial court cases and judges who dole out unorthodox punishments, like people who have to wear signs that say things like, "Watch out, I steal thing" and walk around a mall to incur the public's wrath. I think I'm a fan of those. Maybe if you don't shovel, you risk having a giant sign put on your lawn that says "I don't shovel because I'm a rotten selfish person who doesn't care if you die on my property."
I actually thought today that if I fell on the sidewalk in front of this person's house or this agency's property, would I be wealthy from a lawsuit settlement? I thought about this legitimately for a while, but then I realized the answer was probably not. If I were to fall and hurt myself enough to be out of work, I would have to use up all my personal and sick days because this didn't happen at work so worker's comp is out, and it takes a long time for a lawsuit to even go through, and you can only sue for damages which would be medical bills and loss of pay, which isn't really approaching seven-figures for me. Pain and suffering is a possibility, but that's a real risk depending on the jury, if you even get to have a jury, because you might just have to settle, and also, these people I'd be suing - homeowners or agencies that run buildings - probably don't have that much money anyway, or if they do, they'll throw a big fancy lawyer at me for years until I just give up and accept my permanent limp and unemployment check every month and eat canned food every night of my life and have absolutely zero faith in humanity.
That, obviously, sounded horrific, and so I decided against letting myself just free fall and instead focused on staying on my feet instead of face planted into an icy snowbank. I think I'd rather keep my personal and sick days, not deal with lawyers and legal fees, go through life without a discernible limp, be gainfully employed, and keep my faith in humanity, even if it is on dangerously thin ice.
This week hasn't been pretty. Or stable, for that matter. Monday morning was like someone had poured a bucket of water on the city and then waved a magic freezing wand over everything. The place was literally a skating rink. I barely made it down my street alive, and then I spent the next half hour praying that I'd make it to work. I had several conversations with God, but I was so concerned with my own fate that I neglected to mention the fate of the assholes who did not properly shovel their driveways and sidewalks. After this week though, I'd reconsider and probably include a brief request to have them forced to take over for Sisyphus. Only make Sisyphus's little uphill climb covered in a nice thick sheet of ice.
Here's the thing that gets me: the ice that I've slid on all this week isn't from this week. Fuck, it isn't even from this year. The last time we got serious snow was on New Year's Eve. In 2008. And yet, nobody made a move to fully clear their walkways, and so now that it's not getting that warm, we're in this vicious cycle: during the day, it's just slightly warm enough that you're walking through slush, and then the slush freezes overnight and into the morning. Basically, the hours when most people are walking around the city - morning and evening commute - are a safety hazard. And yet, nobody does anything.
What I do not understand is why people don't use some of the daytime hours to make sure that they clear the slush to the side. Actually, that's wrong. I do understand why. It's because people are selfish assholes who don't care about anybody else, and therefore, they don't care that anyone who tries to walk by their house will be risking their life, or at least their limbs. This is why it's not enough to just get aggravated and chalk it up to a nasty winter. It's not a nasty winter that's making me slip and slide. It's nasty people. It's nasty, rotten people.
I know this to be true because there are some parts of this city, I swear, where I haven't had to hold my breath, fearing that one false step will result in a black and blue road map, shattered bones, or permanent paralysis. Sadly, there's about one block of safety for every 50 of pure treachery, which basically means that I'm going to be in altering states of trepidation, anger, and desperate prayer between now and April. Constantly. This doesn't seem fair.
I've thought about what can be done. They have this hotline in my town where you can call and leave a message about your snow problem, because nobody actually ever answers the phone - probably because they either know what everyone's already going to say or they're unable to reach the phone because they're strung up in a hospital bed after trying to walk to work. Either way, you're left to just leave a message with your complaint, and you can either wait for someone to return your call and address your concerns, or you can wait for hell to freeze over. I'm doing the second, because I'm hoping that these hotline creators and their supporters, the non-shovelers, end up there.
So, I've left a few messages. That hasn't worked. I've heard of people talking to the police officers, who all shrug and share their tales of terror as they've fallen helping people get up from falls they've taken. Very helpful.
Clearly, the conventional method of talking to the people in charge won't work. This isn't very surprising, but it's upsetting nonetheless, and it made me try to think of other solutions. I thought about why people weren't shoveling. Obviously, like I said, they don't care about others' safety. That's the reasoning behind having to shovel in the first place. But the reason people don't do it is because they don't get in trouble if they don't. See, let's say you're not supposed to park on a particular street because it is a pain in the ass for the people who live on that street. This happens all the time, and people obey this rule not because they want to respect the street and the spaces as resident parking, but because they know that if they do park there illegally, they're going to get a ticket or get towed. People obey rules if they fear getting caught and having to face consequences, especially monetary. Or jail time.
While I personally am an advocate of sentencing non-shovelers to jail, preferably with an iced floor, I realize this isn't feasible. I do know people can be held accountable and be fined by the town if they don't shovel, but according to several sources in my town, the snow department is severely understaffed and everyone who's part of it has to work plows, so they don't have people to go around and make sure everything is shoveled. This was the explanation from some person in the town manager's office, because there, they answer the phones thinking I'm calling to invite the town manager to some bullshit PTA or town council gala. Fools.
Anyway, the person on the phone was pretty surprised when I next asked about their meter maid staffing. The two aren't related, according to the town, which is yet another reason why the people in charge are completely inept and I should run the world. Here's what I think: the town always makes sure that people are paying their meters, no matter what. People are constantly getting and fighting tickets over meters. I see meter maids patrolling the streets every single day. So my idea is, include snow removal tickets as part of the meter maid's job responsibilities. These people are your best testers, since their job is to walk around the city! They are already doing what the job requires - all you're really doing is adding one more thing to their domain of control, which meter maids love. Plus, the ice affects their safety, so they're also making the job safer for them. And, if you're not worrying about falling with every step, you probably can move a lot faster and snag a lot more meter violators. I think my plan is ingenious, and it would probably take about a half day of training at meter maid orientation to get everything up and running.
I mentioned this idea to the woman on the phone, who told me that's not the purpose of meter maids. I suppressed the urge to tell her that I have yet to figure out what the fuck the town manager does in my town, because as far as I can see, his management skills are bullshit. Instead I politely hung up.
This was Thursday.
Today I walked to work. Actually, no. I stepped to work. One baby step at a time, I gingerly walked up one of the most main streets in my town. There were blocks of completely unshoveled ice. I half-expected a hot chocolate bar and skate rental at the street corner. I caught a few branches in my face because I was so focused on looking down at my feet and making sure that I found the quarter-inch square of dry concrete to step on before I made my next move. There's this Price Is Right game where the contestant has to step on a giant number board in the order that spells out the price of a car. The squares aren't that small, but people always look awkward on them and they pause before they make any move and sometimes they lose their balance a little and have to sort-of shimmy back on balance on their square or else they risk falling and moving to the wrong square by mistake. This is what it was like to walk to work. Only my prize was arriving at my job, not winning a car.
This was obviously very upsetting, and it made me think about those controversial court cases and judges who dole out unorthodox punishments, like people who have to wear signs that say things like, "Watch out, I steal thing" and walk around a mall to incur the public's wrath. I think I'm a fan of those. Maybe if you don't shovel, you risk having a giant sign put on your lawn that says "I don't shovel because I'm a rotten selfish person who doesn't care if you die on my property."
I actually thought today that if I fell on the sidewalk in front of this person's house or this agency's property, would I be wealthy from a lawsuit settlement? I thought about this legitimately for a while, but then I realized the answer was probably not. If I were to fall and hurt myself enough to be out of work, I would have to use up all my personal and sick days because this didn't happen at work so worker's comp is out, and it takes a long time for a lawsuit to even go through, and you can only sue for damages which would be medical bills and loss of pay, which isn't really approaching seven-figures for me. Pain and suffering is a possibility, but that's a real risk depending on the jury, if you even get to have a jury, because you might just have to settle, and also, these people I'd be suing - homeowners or agencies that run buildings - probably don't have that much money anyway, or if they do, they'll throw a big fancy lawyer at me for years until I just give up and accept my permanent limp and unemployment check every month and eat canned food every night of my life and have absolutely zero faith in humanity.
That, obviously, sounded horrific, and so I decided against letting myself just free fall and instead focused on staying on my feet instead of face planted into an icy snowbank. I think I'd rather keep my personal and sick days, not deal with lawyers and legal fees, go through life without a discernible limp, be gainfully employed, and keep my faith in humanity, even if it is on dangerously thin ice.
