Road Less Travelled and Little Shop of Horrors

The little, one lane private country road that we live off of ("within spittin' distance" was one of my midwestern father's favorite expressions) holds many charms...unfortunately, most of them are seasonal.

It has been a long, hard, snow-drenched winter this year in Vermont, and "cabin fever" is rampant. The only winter sport I have been able to "enjoy" is the one of watching our neighbors try to drive their cars up the hill ("will he make it? no, he won't!") and hoping they don't end up with one or two wheels in the drainage ditch.

The drainage ditch has a brief life as a stream in springtime, assisting the snowmelts past neighboring basements and down the hill. Later, and through summer and fall, it is inocuous and covered in vegetation. It is only in winter it emerges, in my mind at least, as the Little Shop of Horrors. It is hard to believe that so many cars, SUVs and trucks would accidentally slide from the road into the ditch...no, I suspect there is a fiend-plant force there at work, pulling vehicles in and keeping them bound.

A couple of weeks ago our car broke down in Burlington and needed to be left for repairs, so we took a cab home ($70.00 for a cab ride!). The driver, a personable older fellow, we gave specific instructions to do not try to back your cab down the road from here, or you will end up in the ditch. He did, and he did. I offered the driver what help I could, which is very limited. "Once you are in the ditch," I told him, "you can't be pushed out. You can call your dispatcher to send a wrecker, or you can stay right here...you are blocking the road with your taxi so eventually one neighbor or another is going to come by in their truck and have no choice but to pull you out so they can get by." He opted for the later, and was out in 15 minutes or so. Good choice, for our little road is not beloved of the AAA tow truck operators, some refusing to come at all, some finding themselves stuck in the process of helping others, or they work so long they forget and run out of gas.

They say spring always follows winter, but the ice storm of this weekend was particularly a bruiser, and I'm beginning to experience doubts this winter will end, at least not anytime soon. I don't trust the Little Shop of Horrors, so more often than not I've been leaving my car at the foot of the hill. It sits there now with the remainder of my grocery shopping from a couple of days ago still in it, plus the recycling bin. I'm thinking if I put the kitty litter, birdseed and other grocery items in the recycling bin, and take a long dog lead and wrap it around the bin, I can drag it up the icy hill as if it were a sled....