I know you`ll find the title funny, but it`s true. Snow-shoveling is a political process.

This morning it was my turn to shovel snow in front of the garage. You got ten garages, five per each side and they are facing each other. So you have like a common ground in between, that is, of course, full of snow.

There are different ways of snow-shoveling, everyone of them unique to the political views of the…erm…snow-shoveler.

First you have the sneaky bastards. They usually show up early and just dig to their own garage doors, throwing snow onto the paths of others, making little piles and making it harder for others to clean the garage-way.

Second, there are the ignorant ones. They usually own the garage which is the closest to the road and they don`t bother to clean it. Naturally the road is blocked, so eventually others clean it up for them.

Third, you have the normal ones. They clean their own garage, throw the snow over the wall, where nobody is parking cars and in general leave a good impression.

Fourth, you have the people with too much energy/time on their hands and they usually clean the whole lot.

Now…

The political point of snow-shoveling comes into focus when two people from those four groups meet. Group one meeting group two (and vice-versa) usually works out fine. For them that is. Everybody else are fucked.

Group two meeting group three (and vice-versa) does not work. I mean, it works for group two (d00h) but group three is usually pissed off. Same goes with group one and three.

Members of the group four are rare. Very rare. And they are usually underappreciated and nobody notices them.

And it`s always funny to see people different technics of snow-shoveling. Especially if no one is around. Or if there is. If no one is around (or people think no one is around), you`ll find it that in most cases people either sing, talk to themselves, draw in the fresh snow with the tip of the shovel or stuff like that.

When two people are shoveling snow, again the groups rule applies. So you either have a competition, who`s gonna finish first, boasting as in “see me lift this big pile of snow” (like I give a shit) or two people, minding their own business.

To me, it`s always amusing to observe people while they are in their own worlds, doing things while thinking nobody is around (that sounds SO wrong but bare with me, ok) and snow -shoveling is one of the best way to observe that sort of activities.