the right tools

this morning, i tried clearing the thick, half-melted ice from our stairs with an axe.

we discovered the axe hanging above our coat closet when we moved here in august. i thought it was odd that we had one, but i proudly show most guests when i give them a tour.

first, i scraped the loose snow off with my hillbilly gore-tex books and hands, then went to work with the steel. the axe wasn't really working properly as a shovel, and after a minute of hacking, i wondered how many neighbors were watching this display.

i glanced across the street in lust at the neighbor's shovel.

it was propped on their house, metal and rusty, a good shovel that's proved itself capable of handling a decade or more of frosty michigan winters. this shovel would make any plastic shovel feel insignificant. i decided that if i knew the neighbors across the street, it probably wouldn't be a big deal if i went and asked them to use their shovel. but then i thought better of it, since they just saw me come out of my house to spend 25 minutes clearing the snow and ice off my car that's been idle for two weeks. then i hauled a bunch of garbage out of my car into the house and came back outside with an axe to clear the ice off my stairs.

then i remembered how odd they must think i am already, from their perspective, i rarely leave the house and a strange car comes here every morning at various times. some of them know me from the potluck they had in the middle of the street last summer. we stopped by and ate some casseroles and listened to an older lady talk about her yoga class and assured them we weren't huge party-animals and we left. i imagine what they think we're doing some days when we haul heavy gray boxes and black bags and pvc piping and boards with wheels out to our cars and drive away. then i wonder if they can hear the band playing on wednesday nights, but dan says they can't and that's what's sweet about renting a whole house. i wonder if the newspapr guy thinks i'm even alive or just crazy or lazy when a week's worth of newspapers stack up on the front porch.

maybe i should just talk to them. or maybe i should buy a shovel.