Snow.

Late last week our apartment complex hung up signs in the lobby, the elevator, the garage, the trash room, and about a hundred other locations warning us that our cars needed to be moved to a different parking lot prior to 10:00am on Monday, January 10th because they were plowing our lot.  

Having just spent 20 months in Texas, I’m now aware that not everyone understands what I’m talking about.  You see, when you live in Minnesota, huge amounts of snow accumulate in parking lots.  While the friendly snow plow driver folks will plow around your cars on a regular basis, intensive, large-scale snow removal projects are necessary from time to time.  It’s kind of like Spring cleaning for the parking lot.  Only it happens more often than just once a year.  And it happens in the Winter, not the Spring.   Anyhow…

I normally think very little about this process.  In fact it usually doesn’t even impact me since my car and I are at work when it occurs.  But having been freshly transplanted in the snowy metropolis of the Twin Cities and without a job yet, I had to pay lots of attention this time.

In the days leading up to this massive snow removal event I made several mental notes to move my car out of the lot.  I was reminded about the upcoming car moving deadline each time I rode the elevator, every time I put a garbage bag down the trash chute, and on about 27 additional occasions.   

When I woke up this morning I was ready to conquer the world.  I had an actual task on my agenda and I was going to get it done!  It was going to be an amazing show of responsibility, one which would certainly boost my dwindling self-esteem for at least a couple of hours.

I set forth with the energy and excitement of a team of sled dogs.  I woke up when my alarm went off, spent some of my Twitter time looking up a map of the apartment complex, figured out where I should park my car, and devised a route to walk back to my building so I would have to spend the shortest possible amount of time walking outside in the cold.  My plan was to go and execute the plan at exactly 9:45am.

Sometime between my extensive planning/over-analysis of the task ahead of me and the actual execution of said plan I heard a loud noise outside.  It sounded like a giant refrigerator was being dragged down an alley.  Or maybe like a robot ice skating on sheet metal.  I pulled aside a vertical blind and saw it: the parking lot was already being plowed.

What the??!!  I had time left!  In fact, I had over an hour!  This was not the way I expected it to happen at all.  I had carefully crafted a detailed plan to complete the car moving activity.

I sat watching disappointedly while the plow removed snow from our parking lot even though my car and another lonely sedan still occupied the space.  Then I thought really hard about what was going on.  I decided that the snow plow person  probably wanted to get a jump start on the day and was completing some preliminary plowing so that when everyone moved their cars he/she would have less to do.

As 9:30 rolled around I realized that the snow removal appeared to be done.  The plow had driven off and not returned for several minutes.  I had 15 minutes to think about whether or not I should still execute my flawless plan for car moving.  

On one hand, the plow driver might be coming back for a more thorough de-snowing session.  And my roommate was going to come home after work and see what an epic failure in was for not being able to accomplish the simple task of moving my car on time.  And I had spent several minutes painstakingly constructing the most perfect car moving plan ever.  On the other hand, it seemed stupid to go out into the cold if no additional plowing was going to occur.

With a flourish of responsibility and powerful ability to complete a task, I put on my hat and coat, demanded that the dogs “Stay!!”, and walk confidently down the hall to complete my one and only assignment for the day.  As I boarded the elevator I double-checked the sign.  I had read it correctly: the deadline for car moving was 10am today.

I marched out to my car, made note of several other cars still in the lot, sighed, and moved my vehicle to the spot I had so carefully planned earlier in the morning.  I followed the perfect route to the closest door of my building and thought about how utterly STUPID this whole exercise was.

Now I’m back in my apartment peering out the window from time to time.  I’ll let you know when the plow driver returns to take car of the small mound of snow where my car used to be parked.

Oh, and P.S., it just started snowing.