white poison industries

…And I find myself knee deep in a drift that crosses the entire driveway.

In my perfect world, there wouldn’t be a tree within 50 feet of my property line, but given the blustery winter we’re having, I may rethink a row of shrubs or something.

At any rate, here I am, FREEZING on a day that is getting progressively worse with every blink of an eye. I’m cutting out chunks of snow so large from this drift, it looks like an Eskimo village just got Afghanistan’d.

So, I’m standing near the end of the drive when I see the flashing lights of the local county’s finest…yep, the good ol’ Plowmen have arrived. Bubba is cruising around 45 mph and there is a huge wave of junk blowing off the curbside of his blade.

The early morning hillbilly flies past me, sending a blast of frozen snow/slush/whatever-just-fell-out-of-the-sky onto me.

Like I mentioned, the day is getting worse by every blink.

He turns around and comes rolling back down the other side of the street. So, I do what any self-respecting villager would do and I pump out the guns and give him a single finger salute.

Well, this catches his attention. Maybe its the bottle of uppers he’s just finished choking down with a swig of Hee-Haw soda. Maybe, given that plowmen are really awake only a total of 3 1/2 hours a day, this is a moment when he is ultra-aware of his surroundings. Whatever it was, he slams the brakes and slides to a stop in front of Casa del Duke.

Hopping out of the winter tank, he starts with the genius one-liners, “Was that meant for me, boy? Oh man, I think he’s actually got bibs on.

“Well, I certainly don’t see any other redneck bulldozers out here.” OK, that wasn’t my best come back. “What, were you too fat to race in the sprint car finals?” OK, that was a little better.

“Boy, you better be ready to fight, ’cause you gonna catch a whippin’ now.” He’s lumbering towards me.

“Bubba, I wake up ready to fight! I’m gonna box your ears! I’m gonna beat you so hard, you’re going to sleep for 23 straight hours! I’m gonna feed you a dead squirrel. I’m gonna drop you in the snow. I’m gonna run this plow straight through your house! I’ll find out where you live!”

I was on a roll.

He stared at me with a puzzled look in his eyes. I’ve seen it before among the illiterate when they are presented menus at up-scale restaurants.

“You’re gonna feed me squirrel?”

And with that, I straight up sucker-punched the guy. And he hits the ground hard and balls up into a fetal position, crying and hollerin’ and whatnot.

“Why’d you hit me?” he sobs.

Suddenly, it hits me. These plowmen, no matter how poor of a job they do at cleaning off the streets, are still people. And although they really bite at what they do and leave the rest of us in really dangerous positions, they still have feelings.

So, I pick the big guy up, dust him off, help him back to his snow cab and then drive both of us to the closest Starbucks for a warm mug of hot chocolate. We sit and laugh and tell stories and he shows pictures of his stuffed pheasant collection and I order him some more salted caramel hot chocolate and he chugs it down and after three venti-sized mugs of the concoction, we go our separate ways.

But, I have a huge smile on my face, because I know the truth…three cups of salted caramel hot chocolate, anyone would have an afternoon of pain the bathroom.

Ha ha, Plowman, I got you this time!