By: The Nicest Masshole
Adventure, , , , ,

Snow in the City

This post is more about the hilarity of snow here in the North East than it is about being the Nicest Masshole – but I still had to share.

Growing up in Minnesota, I KNOW what snow is. I have played in it. Driven in it. Slid on it (not cool). Shoveled it. Nothin’ really phased me about snow. Until I moved to Boston.

**Spoiler alert** One of my future posts will be about the roads and drivers in this freaking city. And I may or may not begin the post with a parody of “I like big butts….”

To preface, we all know that Minnesota (Minneapolis/St. Paul) is very populated. However, there are so many places snow is able to be moved to in order for the cities to not go into complete chaos. Reminiscing, I definitely got frustrated, but only for like the 24 hours it was snowing.

Ok, here we go. Boston is also very populated. There are people and houses and bikers and cars and buildings everywhere. And most buildings don’t have parking lots if you are in the city or the suburbs right outside that city that are still technically Boston. In general, if there is traffic, there isn’t whole lot you can do to avoid it. The roads a kind of narrow and become practically one way roads when there is too much snow. People park in places that are definitely not parking spots. The snow plows leave more snow on the shoulders (parking lane) than they remove from the streets. Dump trucks come to literally move the snow out of the city. It is insane. And people typically don’t leave their house unless necessary or on foot. (People have even been known to ski to the street to the bars – and I will do this one day).
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After a snow storm is all said and done – you better have a shovel in your car to shovel yourself out. And if you do that, you better have something to put in your parking spot. A cone, garbage can, lawn chair, I am pretty sure I saw a vacuum, basically anything that let’s people know that you were the one who spent an hour and a half shoveling and that spot is yours. I am not even kidding – if you shovel yourself out of this snow, you are entitled to that spot. The best part about all of this – it’s respected for 72 hours! You have THREE DAYS of your own personal parking spot. It’s so freaking awesome.

Said best by Mama Shabs, “Well isn’t that cute!”. Yes, mama Shabs, it is cute.

I didn’t really believe it until after my trip to Vegas. I was one of three flights that got out of Boston before the first winter blizzard – every other flight was cancelled. I came home and it was like the sky dumped every possible bit of moisture in the form of snow on the city. I had to work from home that Monday because my car was snowed in to my parking spot. Three days later and people still hadn’t dug their cars out. Cars were still getting stuck in the street. Snow banks were as tall as me as trucks and people tried to get it off the road. I will have to say, living in the Twin Cities my whole life, I haven’t really had to do more than shoveling the snow off my car. It is incredible. And kind of beautiful if you ask me.

Just a quick FYI, if you take someones parking spot after you shovel, your tires will get slashed, and you are definitely a Masshole. So I guess that still makes me the Nicest Masshole since I have yet to do that.

*I do not own the rights to the images I posted*