Last night, while all of America was watching American Idol, you would have found me outside, clad in a college sweatshirt, pink pajama bottoms, navy blue galoshes, a scarf, and black mittens, using a red bucket to heave snow onto my driveway.
Let me back up a little.
Throughout the day, I’d had occasion to go into my bedroom now and again, as one does. Because I am nearly always barefoot, I noticed that the carpet was very cold. One wall of the bedroom is occupied primarily by a set of sliding glass doors that open onto a balcony, so I blamed the cold carpet on the “arctic winds and freezing temperatures” my weatherman keeps having hysterics about.
During the first commercial break of American Idol, I went into the bedroom on a hunt for the heating pad. (My back was aching. I think I hurt it while sleeping, which sounds ridiculous. But that’s the only thing I can think of.) Once again, I noticed that the carpet was cold. In fact, it was so cold, it felt almost wet.
That’s when my brain caught up to my feeling sensors and I put my hand on the carpet.
Aha! It WAS wet.
Hmm. Why was the carpet wet?
I looked at the ceiling first, because my natural inclination is to blame apartment issues on my neighbors.
No evidence of leakage on the ceiling.
So I got down on my hands and knees and felt along the carpet. Weirdly, it was not wet closest to the sliding doors.
But when I looked outside, I was surprised to find that there was an enormous drift on the balcony. Seriously enormous. As in, the ENTIRE balcony was heaped with snow.
Let me first explain that I rarely look out those windows. The balcony is right on top of the driveway and garage door (we have a big garage that occupies the entire basement of the apartment building, which we share with many other tenants), so it’s not really a scenic view. And since it’s the bedroom, where we tend to do things like sleep and change, we keep the blinds closed about 90% of the time.
The drift was at least four feet tall in places, and I – being a logical sort – figured that maybe some of the snow was melting into the side of the building and leaking into my bedroom.
(That sounds reasonable, right?)
My first instinct was to wait until morning and call maintenance to come take care of it.
But I HATE the maintenance people. Okay, maybe I don’t actually hate the people; rather, I hate DEALING with the maintenance people. Despise. Loathe. Abhor. So I immediately scratched that off my list.
Instead, I chose Plan B: I would try to remedy the problem myself.
I put on my galoshes and grabbed the red plastic bucket we use to wash the cars (okay, used once ever) and climbed out onto the balcony to clear it of snow.
This turned out to be quite perilous.
First of all, the snow drifts were not comprised simply of snow. They were a winter lasagna of snow on top of ice on top of more snow on top of slushy icy snow. So I had to use my feet to break up the drifts and then fill the bucket up with small icebergs and toss them over the side.
(Don’t worry – I made sure no one was standing below the balcony before I did that. I’m not into hurling chunks of solid H2O at humans.)
Being the kind of person who is aware that winter can kill you in more ways than just smothering you with snow or freezing you to death, I looked up to see if I was standing beneath any murderous icicles.
Turns out, the eaves two stories above were mainly clear…
Except for two particularly nasty looking icicles that looked like they could – and would, delightfully, if given the chance – bore a plate-sized hole in my skull.
And, of course, they were positioned directly above one of the big corner drifts.
I did a pretty decent job of clearing most of the balcony. And then I took a deep breath and tackled the drift below the icicles.
The icicles had been dripping on this section of the balcony for days. So the drift was composed mainly of ice. Honestly, I’m kind of shocked the drift hadn’t turned into some sort of ice stalagmite – although maybe that’s what it was aspiring to.
Trying to work as quickly as possible, I hacked at it with my bucket, I stomped on it, I peeled away chunks with my mittened hands (this is the one flaw in leaving my ski clothing at my parents’ house – I have no ski gloves, only a pair of leather Coach ones and these silly mittens).
I was afraid that being too vigorous about my snow removal methods would somehow dislodge the icicles above, so I was a little… well, frantic.
It didn’t help matters that the giant killer icicles gleefully dripped on me the entire time. You know, to remind me that they were there, poised directly above my neck, ready to divest me of my blood at any moment.
I imagined the headlines:
Oddly-Dressed Woman Gored by Icicle
“If only she’d just called maintenance,” apartment manager scolds.
Spoiler Alert: The icicles did not fall and/or kill me. I think they are biding their time until I’m least expecting to be murdered.
Lacking a proper broom, a shovel, and a snow plow, I was unable to completely clear the balcony. But I gave it the old college try, and it’s at least BETTER if not PERFECT.
However, because I left the door open while I filled and heaved (so it wouldn’t freeze shut while I was on the balcony), some snow shrapnel made its way into the bedroom and made the carpet worse. Temporarily, I hope.
The carpet is now itself carpeted in an array of bath towels.
Some things I learned from this experience:
- A round bucket is not particularly well-suited for clearing snow from CORNERS.
- Just because your galoshes are supposedly waterproof does not mean they are cold proof… therefore, it is a good idea to wear socks when stomping around in large amounts of snow.
- Icicles are vindictive bastards.
- I wish I had more cupcakes.
- Things Like This are more likely to happen when one’s husband is on call. (This is actually something I knew before, See: That time when lightning struck my parents’ house when my dad was at the hospital)
Things I did NOT learn from this experience:
- Whether the balcony drifts were, in fact, the reason my carpet was wet. I will keep you updated as I learn more.
At least now my back hurts for a reason, instead of “because I hurt it while sleeping.”
Oddly dressed?! That’s the standard college wardrobe right there. I was thinking to myself you must’ve looked good! (Alas, this college bubble I’m in can’t last forever.)
Yeah… I’ve been out of college for eight years. So I think “college wardrobe” no longer applies to me.
oh goodness gracious! I hate wet carpets. Even worse are wet COLD carpets! And I completely understand about the frozen toes. Halfway through my walk this morning mine went numb. Thank goodness I have a space heater to “de-thaw” them on.
Hope your carpet problem is fixed!!!
You are a hoot!
Our carpet got wet once when we lived in Florida and had a hurricane. Apparently, the wind was blowing the rain at such a weird angle that it drove the water up through the floor. We were renting though, so it wasn’t our problem. Which is good because I don’t think they ever fixed it.
The best part of this is that you weren’t wearing socks! I am cracking up.
I hope the carpet dries up!
My office-mates are wondering why I am staring at my computer screen and am killing myself laughing.
I am fairly certain that if I showed them this entry they would be doing the same!!!
I hope the carpet dries.
That the back starts feeling better.
And that the killer icicles never hurt you the way you think they might want to!
You crack me up. If I were a TV producer-ish person, I would totally pitch a reality show about you 🙂
You always crack me up! Sometimes I think that I really wish I lived somewhere that we got a lot of snow…and then I read posts like this and realize that I totally couldn’t handle it!
Did you end up calling maintenance just in case? I’m sure our worker guys think I’m a complete idiot by the calls I make. I have them over all the time.
This makes me cold just reading it!
Wow, this is a crazy story! Hope you find the source of the carpet wetness soon! And, I also learned this winter that those fabulous rubber galoshes are only WATER, not COLDproof. My toes were freezing after I dug my car out of the snow last week. Freezing, but dry. 🙂
Hope your back and your toes are feeling better! We are having big snow and ice problems too. I have a mud room off my kitchen and now, it’s filling with ice that crept up under the roof line and is melting into my mudroom. Honestly I don’t even understand how it’s melting into the house, because that wall is frigid, but I guess it’s warmer than the ‘too-far-below-negative-for-humans’ temperature outside.
Hope you have a nice dry weekend!
-FringeGirl
Love this. I try to do things like this too and I end up over my head!