Let it snow

Sunday, Dec 21: The most recent post by the on-duty meteorologist at the NWS office in Gaylord calls for less snow than we had been told to expect, although Manistee may still be in a high-impact area.

I'm enjoying myself catching up on the economic meltdown articles I've piled up the last couple of weeks, wondering if we'll be able to cross the street tonight, dig our cars out of the snow and move them to the other side of the street.

It's taken me four years to comprehend the city's annual message about even-odd parking. It reads, "From November 15th thru (sic) April 15th, Snow Removal (the capital letters make it official) will be in effect. The Alternate Parking System will be in effect 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The change over time will be from 4 p.m. thru 7 p.m. allowing residents to switch their vehicles for the upcoming day. . . .

EVEN DATES - PARK ON EVEN NUMBERED SIDE OF STREET
ODD DATES - PARK ON ODD NUMBERED SIDE OF STREET"

I struggled with this. I'm normally bright enough to follow instructions, but, because I took the word "park" a transitive verb, literally. I assumed that, on even-numbered evenings I should park my vehicle in front of my house. I would "unpark" the car the next morning, odd-numbered, of course, and park on the odd-numbered side of the street that evening between 4 and 7.

That was wrong, as a pair of $20 tickets quickly proved to my wife and me. I called City Hall to Bitch (officially) and was told by the church lady who answered the phone that, in her opinion, the warning was perfectly worded. But every fall, I look at the warning in the News-Advocate and wonder what it really means. Finally, another ticket (and two forgiven tickets), I memorized the rule as this: "Go to bed even, wake up odd."

As it happens, I have not seen or heard a snow plow since early, early this morning, when the snow was just beginning to accumulate. If the city snow crew's usual schedule holds, there will be two plows out tonight, driving around and around the block at 10 p.m. as if they're competing in a snowplow rodeo, securely mortaring our vehicles to the curb in snow the density of compressed clay, which I will spend half an hour cursing tomorrow morning in the dark. I'd like to move my vehicles now, at 11:50 a.m., but that would violate the law and cost me $40 (I could hedge against it by betting $40 that a police cruiser would mysteriously appear by 4 p.m.), despite the fact that absolutely nothing has moved today. Heaven knows, someone might want to drive cattle down the street and they wouldn't have anywhere to go.