First snow for frankencar

As usually happens the week of Thanksgiving, we've had our first snow for the winter. Sleet started falling yesterday as we were getting ready for church, and during the course of the day, it turned to snow. The temperature is still above freezing during the day, but it won't be long now before it starts to stick.

I've decided that in the week leading up to Thanksgiving, I'm only going to blog about things that I'm grateful for (like the Christmas cactus). Today I'm thankful for snow, and here's why. See this sign? It's directly across the street from our house. In its entirety the sign reads: "Snow route. No parking when snow depth exceeds 2 inches. Ordinance no. 3177. Contact police department for impounded vehicles." Living along a priority plow route is definitely a reason to be grateful, though in my case it's probably not for the reason you'd think.

This is Frankencar. Oh, how I've wanted to blog about Frankencar before, but I was always too angry to see straight, let alone put together a cohesive sentance. Our neighbors *cough* white trash *cough* across the street have a teenage son who has been constantly rebuilding his car ever since they moved in this past spring.

Over the course of the summer, a series of Subarus have inhabited the curbside directly across the street from our house. Each one has been cannibalized for usable parts and then disappeared. Only Frankencar has remained, slowly taking shape. One night after eleven as I was getting ready to head up to bed, I noticed a bright flash behind the blinds in our living room. I peeked out and they were arc-welding on their front lawn. Arc-welding. On the lawn. At eleven p.m. In a moment of weak character, I was disappointed to note that they did have protective eyewear.

Once Frankencar was actually up and running (complete with naked silver lady mudflaps bolted to the rear bumper), life across the street was frought with intermittant frustration bordering on rage. You see, in all the piecemeal parts that kid salvaged, he forgot a muffler. So at all hours of the day and night when he revved up his engine to show his friends how cool his car was before they went galivanting around, the entire neighborhood knew it. This was especially frustrating during the last couple months of my pregnancy when I was having trouble sleeping.

The week before Audrey was born Jim went over and talked to the kid, told him that we would be having a baby soon, and politely asked him to keep the noise down. Apparently he was pretty embarrassed and for about a month the revving lessened considerably. When it started up again, one of his other neighbors must have complained because code enforcement showed up at his front door one afternoon when I was checking the mail. But that's been long enough ago that the kid is back to revving his engine, any time of day or night.

Which is why it warms the cockles of my unneighborly heart when the snow starts to fall. Because even if it's only for a short season, Frankencar will be gracing the curb across the street from someone else's house.