How My Snow Blower Got a Name

I am not in the habit of naming inanimate objects like cars or power tools. Once when I was 11, I did name an orthodontic appliance "Reggie" but that was an aberration.  A lot of people name their cars. My mother, for example, while working for the federal government (as a boring, old loan officer, not the FBI or anything) named every one of her G-cars. There was an Emmy (green car, short for emerald), there was a Lucy (a red car), a Prince (it was purple, we're from Minnesota) and a Hi-Ho (silver car). This is not my way. And contrary to the belief my cousin from Wyoming has, it is not customary to name our snow blowers here in Minnesota. At least not that I know of. 

Fact is, I've never really given my snow blower much thought. It's red. It takes up a lot of room in my garage. It's heavier than hell and truth be told, I'm kind of scared of it. I feel like it pulls me around the driveway and just moves the snow around rather than actually removing it from my driveway. Every time I've used it, I end up covered head to toe in snow and looking like a yeti. I apparently don't have the gene for heavy machinery, which to my way of thinking, this snow blower is. Fortunately, I have a parent who takes pity on me and comes over to man the snow blower. Yay!

So that's about as much thought as I've given this snow blower in the 5 years that I've owned it. Until now. Right before Christmas, the stupid snow blower decided to stop working. On Wednesday, December 29, 2010, it went into the shop. Now if you don't live in eastern North Dakota or western Minnesota, that date won't mean anything to you. If you do, you know that that date is the day before the double-header snow storm hit. Over the course of 3 days (which just happened to be New Year's. Bye-bye New Year's plans, hello House marathon on USA) the two storms dumped around 10 inches of snow in the area bringing the 3 month total to 45 inches. 

Since I live on a corner, most of the time the wind blows the snow right out of the driveway which it did during the first storm. During the second storm, the wind switched direction and blew the snow in. And no matter what way the wind is blowing, the sidewalk to my front door always gets blocked by massive amounts of snow. By the time the storms ended I had around 5 feet of snow from my front door to the end of the sidewalk and around the same at the end of the driveway. Usually, I just count on my 4 wheel drive to plow though my driveway but after the street plow came by, there was no way that was going to happen!

Now I feel guilty enough that my step-dad comes over to man the snow blower but since he doesn't seem to mind too much and I'm scared of that stupid thing, I let him. And bake him apple pies. But I wasn't going to make him come over to shovel since I'm really not scared of a shovel. I have no love affair with them but you know, I can handle it. I made the kids come with me to help. We start with the front door and sidewalk. In a word, it sucks. The wind is still blowing and mostly we get faces full of snow. And while the snow is pretty light, the problem is that snow piles up pretty quickly next to the sidewalk and it isn't long before we're trying to throw snow above our heads. Fortunately, we quickly get a clue and walk the snow over to shorter hills. 

Since we have nowhere to go that day, we leave the driveway for the next day which was good plan as it wasn't windy that day. Again the snow is light, which is good because it's deep. Shoveling snow? Yeah, my back doesn't like it one little bit. So we're shoveling and pretty soon I notice that I'm singing Kenny Rogers in my head.

Kenny Rogers! Seriously, I haven't thought of Kenny Rogers since sometime in the 80's. And it's not even The Gambler or Coward of the County which would be the songs I most remember (this is made all the more unusual by that fact that, in general, I dislike country music very, very much) but is a song I barely remember called Lucille. Do you know that song? "You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille"? Yes, that's what I was singing. 

You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille.

4 feet of snow and a blocked in driveway.

I've had some cold times,

Lived through some snow storms,

But this time the snow plow has won.

You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille.

And because I sang this stupid song over and over again not only while I was shoveling snow but for days afterward, (OMG! Seriously, can it stop already?), I came to the only logical conclusion. The snow blower must be named Lucille. It's the only explanation why it would choose the week of a double snow storm to quit working. 

So there it is. Lucille, the stupid red snow blower who bails in my hour of need. I hope she comes home soon. She has a lot of work to do.