Running Chick

I have a neighbor named Dorf. That's actually not his real name, but he looks like Tim Conway's charater Dorf, so the name stuck. I also have another neighbor, Sarge. Again, not his real name, but he's a former Marine hence the name. My house sits between Dorf's and Sarge's house. The lots are narrow and our yards connect. Dorf and I share a driveway. Dorf has a snowblower, I use my trusty Yooper Scoop. Dorf never takes his snowblower out of first gear so he's painfully slow. Seriously, snow removal takes me 30-40 minutes, it takes him well over a hour. He also makes a mess of the yard, I might add.

Last year, I started to notice that every time I was outside scooping my snow, Dorf would also come outside and start doing his snow. Not a big deal, except that every time I got ahead of Dorf, he would have to wait for me to get done so that he wouldn't shoot snow on my head. Conversely, if Dorf was ahead of me, I would have to wait for him to get out of the way so I wouldn't have to push snow around him & his snowblower. We got home from work about the same time, so at first I just figured it was a coincidence that he would come out every time I was doing my snow. But then I started to notice that even on the weekends, he wouldn't go outside until I went outside. Then he got laid off and I thought that since he had all day to do his snow, he'd do it early in the day I wouldn't have to deal with him. Wrong! I would get home around 4:30, and start to put on my snow clothes and I would hear his snowblower start up. Every single time.

After a while, it became like a race. Leave work! Race home! Get dressed quickly! Hurry, must make it outside before Dorf!! This went on the entire winter.

Fast forward to today. We got quite a bit of snow overnight, so I knew I had snow to move when I got home. Just like clockwork, Dorf's snowblower started up as I was getting dressed. Instead of getting frustrated over it, I sat around for a hour waiting for him to finish. Then I decided to turn it into a little competition and thus the 2009 Great Snow Removal Race was born. Dorf was out before me today, so he gets a point. But, not to worry, I've got my spies to keep an eye on him. I'll even the score before long.

Today's tally: Dorf - 1, Me - 0

In other news, it's snowing and blowing like a mother outside. Nasty.

Labels: 2009 Great Snow Race