Last year was the winter-light version, but never fear! This winter is going to make up for it.

As I drive my kids to school in the morning, I am very aware, as we slide to a stop in the middle of the intersection,  that my little car does not have the best winter tires ever.  When I look up to see the snowplow coming down the road, and I honestly want to jump out and hand the man a cup of hot cocoa and a cinnamon roll and kiss him on the cheek! Think about it! Imagine being a snow plow driver. It’s cold and snowy, and the roads are horrible, and it’s your job to get out of your cozy bed before dawn, get into your freezing truck and get the roads ready for people like me. Man, I’m glad that’s not my job!

I have not ever actually handed a snow plow driver cocoa or a cinnamon roll or a kiss on the cheek. Mostly because I don’t drive around with cocoa and cinnamon rolls in my car. (I would eat them if I did.) And I generally avoid kissing strangers, even if they are driving snow plows. But don’t you feel like you want to?

And then there are the sidewalks on campus. Picture penguins sliding down icebergs, and you might have a close approximation of what some places on campus have been like. Last week, after I passed 3 accidents and 4 cars off the side of the road, I imagined myself walking down the ramp from the parking lot to class and knew for certain I would break multiple bones– and not just my pinkie toes!– if I tried to get to class. So I turned slowly around and went back home, where I studied and worked on my computer in front of the fire. When I got to campus the next day, there were these guys with shovels everywhere I went, with red, frost-bitten faces and determined looks, shoveling paths between the buildings. I still didn’t have hot cocoa or cinnamon rolls, but my lips were functioning! So I kissed them all!

Just kidding. But I did thank them. Most of them only grunted in reply. Probably the kisses would have gotten a better response.

Then at home, there I was, studying political theories by the fire, all cozy under a blanket, with my girls doing homework beside me, when I realized the snowblower I’d been hearing was actually in my own yard! I looked out the front window, and what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a man so hidden behind blowing snow and coat and hat that I have absolutely no idea who he is. I threw off my blanket, carefully put my laptop to sleep (because it’s getting temperamental in its old age) and rushed to the front door.

But he was gone. The only evidence he’d really been there was a clear path from my front door to the mail box, and a snow-free driveway.

If he’d known about the cocoa, cinnamon rolls and kisses…. he probably would have left anyway.

So there you have it. Snow, cold, ice and storms. Followed by people with snow plows, snow blowers and shovels. May they have warm homes and hot cocoa and sweet cinnamon rolls and someone to kiss their cheeks.

🙂