How the Chinese Tried to Kill Me and My Snowblower
We woke this AM to some snow. Maybe 6 inches, so not a lot. But enough for me to fire up the snowblower and get cracking.
Some starter fluid and cursing - the snowblower is 30+ years old, a hand-me-down from kass_rants 's father - later, the Briggs & Stratton is purring nicely and I'm throwing snow off the driveway.
I make a couple of passes and wend my way to where the driveway meets Route 611, which is nearly as busy this morning as it is on a morning with normal traffic conditions. (It's a fairly major route from Easton to points south, including Philadelphia.) As I'm slowly grinding away the present left by the PennDOT plow truck, I see a mid-1990s Honda Accord careening towards me, completely out of control.
RIGHT. TOWARDS. ME.
I hurl myself away, abandoning the aged snowblower to what I assumed was an awful fate. The car jolted off the field-stone retaining wall at the front of the house, missed me by inches, and cracked into the snowblower before coming to a rest facing north in the southbound lane.
This is where it gets really interesting.
Three Asian gentlemen clamber out of the car. The car is really none the worse for wear. The front bumper has a crack and scrape where it fought the wall and lost, but the airbags didn't deploy. After using a mix of single-syllable English and pidgin sign-language, I determined the car's occupants were uninjured. They righted the car's direction and pulled slightly off the road to inspect the damage.
I was inspecting the snowblower - which didn't even move when struck - when I saw one of the men walking towards me with a mobile phone. "You call 911?" he said.
"Sure," I replied. "Are you OK?" (NB: "OK" is the only two-syllable word I used.)
"Yeah, yeah, all OK."
"Bring the car here," I said, making motions of putting it in the driveway. "And wait here."
I went into the house, grabbed the phone, and dialed 911, who connected me with the PA State Police barracks (PASP are the police presence in the township). The nice Trooper got the story, then told me to send the fellows on their way; if there are no injuries and the vehicle isn't disabled, it's between the driver and his insurance, and the PASP don't need to get involved. I asked him if he was too busy to wait a moment while I attempted to translate - I didn't want to ring off before I was certain the Asian blokes understood what they needed to do.
I don't know if you've noticed, but it's damned near impossible to tell someone to go home and call their automobile insurance company using a ten-word vocabulary and sign-language. I could hear the Trooper giggling at my distress and frustration - thanks heaps, officer - when one of the blokes handed me his mobile and said, "Talk to friend?"
Thank heavens.
The friend was obviously also Asian by his accent, but spoke excellent English. I had the mobile pressed to right ear and house phone pressed to left, and explained everything. With the assurance of the English-speaking friend that all would be explained, I rang off with the Trooper - still giggling, I might add - rang off with the friend, handed back the phone, and told the Asian blokes to sod off.
"GO SLOW," I advised. They waved and skidded off.
But then I noticed the orange monster of a snowblower, sitting in a pile of snow at the bottom of my driveway, dead to the world.
Oh, NO.
Not only do I have less than half of the driveway done, that f*cker weighs about 7,000 pounds, and if it's dead I'll have to drag it uphill before shoveling the rest.
CRAP.
ONNA STICK.
Well, nothing for it. Let's see if it starts...
The 4hp motor leaped to a mighty roar on the first pull. Hurrah!
The older-than-I -am, inherited snowblower that I've never maintained beyond changing the oil - once, the year I inherited it, say, five years ago? - CANNOT BE KILLED, EVEN WHEN STRUCK BY A CAR.
The damn thing will probably outlive ME.
So that's my Snowpocalypse Story. Thanks for listening.
Some starter fluid and cursing - the snowblower is 30+ years old, a hand-me-down from kass_rants 's father - later, the Briggs & Stratton is purring nicely and I'm throwing snow off the driveway.
I make a couple of passes and wend my way to where the driveway meets Route 611, which is nearly as busy this morning as it is on a morning with normal traffic conditions. (It's a fairly major route from Easton to points south, including Philadelphia.) As I'm slowly grinding away the present left by the PennDOT plow truck, I see a mid-1990s Honda Accord careening towards me, completely out of control.
RIGHT. TOWARDS. ME.
I hurl myself away, abandoning the aged snowblower to what I assumed was an awful fate. The car jolted off the field-stone retaining wall at the front of the house, missed me by inches, and cracked into the snowblower before coming to a rest facing north in the southbound lane.
This is where it gets really interesting.
Three Asian gentlemen clamber out of the car. The car is really none the worse for wear. The front bumper has a crack and scrape where it fought the wall and lost, but the airbags didn't deploy. After using a mix of single-syllable English and pidgin sign-language, I determined the car's occupants were uninjured. They righted the car's direction and pulled slightly off the road to inspect the damage.
I was inspecting the snowblower - which didn't even move when struck - when I saw one of the men walking towards me with a mobile phone. "You call 911?" he said.
"Sure," I replied. "Are you OK?" (NB: "OK" is the only two-syllable word I used.)
"Yeah, yeah, all OK."
"Bring the car here," I said, making motions of putting it in the driveway. "And wait here."
I went into the house, grabbed the phone, and dialed 911, who connected me with the PA State Police barracks (PASP are the police presence in the township). The nice Trooper got the story, then told me to send the fellows on their way; if there are no injuries and the vehicle isn't disabled, it's between the driver and his insurance, and the PASP don't need to get involved. I asked him if he was too busy to wait a moment while I attempted to translate - I didn't want to ring off before I was certain the Asian blokes understood what they needed to do.
I don't know if you've noticed, but it's damned near impossible to tell someone to go home and call their automobile insurance company using a ten-word vocabulary and sign-language. I could hear the Trooper giggling at my distress and frustration - thanks heaps, officer - when one of the blokes handed me his mobile and said, "Talk to friend?"
Thank heavens.
The friend was obviously also Asian by his accent, but spoke excellent English. I had the mobile pressed to right ear and house phone pressed to left, and explained everything. With the assurance of the English-speaking friend that all would be explained, I rang off with the Trooper - still giggling, I might add - rang off with the friend, handed back the phone, and told the Asian blokes to sod off.
"GO SLOW," I advised. They waved and skidded off.
But then I noticed the orange monster of a snowblower, sitting in a pile of snow at the bottom of my driveway, dead to the world.
Oh, NO.
Not only do I have less than half of the driveway done, that f*cker weighs about 7,000 pounds, and if it's dead I'll have to drag it uphill before shoveling the rest.
CRAP.
ONNA STICK.
Well, nothing for it. Let's see if it starts...
The 4hp motor leaped to a mighty roar on the first pull. Hurrah!
The older-than-I -am, inherited snowblower that I've never maintained beyond changing the oil - once, the year I inherited it, say, five years ago? - CANNOT BE KILLED, EVEN WHEN STRUCK BY A CAR.
The damn thing will probably outlive ME.
So that's my Snowpocalypse Story. Thanks for listening.