Stupid Sidewalk Snowplows

It’s like any winter morning. There’s snow. It just so happened that there was quite a few more inches of snow that had yet to be attended. Still the buses were on. I could almost hear the groans of thousands of students who had expected a snow day. I’m a walker and so are the two friends that I walk with everyday to school. Being a walker, I have to go into the cold weather anyway. A few more inches surely wouldn’t bother me more than snow usually does. So I set out at my usual time, 7:55am.

            There was a problem though. When we crossed to road to walk on the sidewalk, we discovered that the sidewalk plow hadn’t done its job yet. So now, there was easily three or four inches of snow layering the sidewalk and a foot and a half border created by the road plows. It wasn’t going to be easy to walk on the sidewalk today. The road however, had already been plowed earlier that morning. We then decided that we would walk on the road.

A stupid idea really, since we were walking on the only available side; the wrong side. And it didn’t help that we had to walk up a hill. On the wrong side. Any car that came over that hill fast would most likely hit us or cause a horrific accident. Luckily, we made it over the hill without any fatalities.

There was another delay when we hit the corner gate that leads you through the field. No one has walked it yet and there is a little bit of the path that was there before. It was either face the snow or walk around. If the sidewalks were plowed, we could have easily just gone around and still be on time. Walking on the road had caused us to lose time. Walking around would most likely make me late and keep me out in the cold longer. Walking through would get me there faster, but there is no knowing where the path is exactly and there was a risk of hitting deep snow. Being on time won in the end.

I lead the trudge through the snow. We mostly were able to follow the old path of packed snow that hid under the new stuff. We didn’t always manage to stick to it. A few times we ended up in knee deep snow. But we made it. Or, at least almost did. When it came the gate that lead into the school, it happened. I placed my foot in the wrong spot and I went down. The fast and flurriest. I fell into a heap of snow that had looked like it was waiting for this moment. It seemed to throw confetti of snow into the air to celebrate my tumble.

I stood up and continue into the school. My hands were bright red and achy from being exposed to cold and my cheeks flushed. Now my legs were frozen too. I couldn’t help but feel eyes on me and my new white pants through out the walk to first class. My pants never thawed and dried off until easily third period. I can’t help but think that if the sidewalk plow had been doing its job, I could have avoided the discomfort. Stupid sidewalk snowplows.