This past week we had an early Spring snow storm that brought us a few inches of heavy wet snow. After the storm ended, I went outside to shovel the walkway and driveway, a bit reluctantly since it’s April and I know that all this snow will melt in a few days anyway. It was just me shoveling, as Mr. C and Ms. J were out taking Scout for a walk. It was an early Spring day, and the temperature was approaching 50, so I really wasn’t in a rush to finish the shoveling. It was already starting to melt, so why should I work so hard to clear it off the drive way anyway, I thought.
So I decided to take a break for lunch, and went inside to make a sandwich, leaving my shovel propped up on a snow pile Between making lunch and eating lunch, I must have taken about a half hour. Just as I finished my sandwich, the phone rang, which added another fifteen minutes or so to the time inside. After my break, I thought I would go out and finish clearing off the side walk. However, when I went outside, my shovel was gone!
I looked all over the front yard and there was no sign of the shovel. It wasn’t in the big pile of snow next to the driveway, not in the pile next to the sidewalk, not leaning next to the back of my car in the driveway, not leaning next to the front of my car in the driveway. It was nowhere to be seen.
Then I looked down the street and saw my shovel sticking out of a pile of snow in a neighbor’s driveway. It’s a very distinctive yellow color, with a yellow handle, and I remember the brand name was ‘Garant, and that the table had started to peel off the handle. Is that my shovel? Did my neighbor “borrow” my shovel ?
The house in question is four houses down, across the street, so I walked over to the shovel to check to see if it was mine. It had the yellow handle, the yellow shovel, and the label was starting to peel off the handle.
‘Hmmm… why would this guy take my shovel?’, I thought. Very odd. I knew that this was a new family on the block, so maybe they didn’t have a shovel, or maybe they didn’t know where their shovel was in the pile of boxes they must have from moving in. So I took the shovel back home and finished shoveling.
After I finished shoveling I put the shovel away, stacking it with the two other shovels I keep in the front entry way. By this time it was about 3:00pm, Ms. J and C had come back home from walking the dog, and it was still early afternoon, so we were able to do quite a few other things the rest of the day. I forgot to ask J what she thought of the missing shovel, we were just too busy doing other things and it didn’t occur to me at the time.
The next morning at about 5:00 am, Scout needed to go out. He doesn’t bark to let us know he needs to go out, he shakes his head until his ears shake around making a distinctive sound. It’s a fairly quiet sound, so often only one of us wakes up, me or Ms. J. Since it was still early, J and C were still asleep, and since I was barely awake myself, I decided to just let him out into the back yard. The back yard is fenced, so we can just let him run around out there if he needs to. This has been a great advantage on freezing cold Winter nights. We can just open the back door, let Scout out, and wait inside where it’s warm. So I put on my bathrobe and slippers, went down stairs to let him out.
I open the back door, Scout runs out, and just as I turn to go back inside, in the early morning light I see a snow shovel with a yellow handle next to the back door. My shovel. At the back door. I didn’t leave it in the front yard when I went inside for lunch yesterday, I went in the back door and left the shovel at the back door.
Now I had stolen my new neighbor’s shovel and it was on my front porch. What to do? I don’t even know who these people are yet, they just moved in. Should I wait until the morning and introduce myself as their neighbor down the street who stole their shovel ? So at about 5:15 am, I took the shovel walked down the street and put it back in the snow pile at the end of their driveway. I did change from the bathrobe and slippers to a shirt and pants before doing that though.
