It was a frosty morning and a father was about to face his Waterloo against swearing. He was going down. Here’s what happened.
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Living back east in the winter has all the appeal of a lumpectomy. Certain things just need to get done in order to keep moving forward. Get it done or else. Well, one of my least favorite tasks, yet most necessary due to a long, paved driveway, is shoveling snow. Worse, is shoveling snow before work. Yet even worse, is shoveling snow before work with a wife and teenager anxious to get their day going, too.
Alas, the perfect storm hit last week, with the three of us converging on a backdrop of meteorological purity of another east coast storm. This is where I found myself, puffing and piling away, making an open road to our individual lives that lay at the bottom of the driveway.
I was already tired and cranky when, about halfway done, our high school senior appeared outside the door. A mirage? This was a Snow Day, of course. All teenagers slept-in during snow days. Something was up.
“Dad, I need to get out”
“Where’ya going?”
“To Breakfast with a friend”
Not what I expected to hear. Obviously a date was in the offing, but I played dumb. “With a girl? You gotta be kidding. You’re not going anywhere ‘til we’re done here. Grab a shovel.”
Pat was trying very hard to connect with girls and, in my haste to get the driveway clear, I had over- looked how important this morning was to him. I surmised that a 15 minute postponement wouldn’t matter, but alas, the timing of this arrangement was apparently critical due to “her” schedule. A couple of texts later, his breakfast date was canceled.
Canceled by virtue of a 15 minute postponement? I felt bad about the outcome but I still became the bad guy. Not in my mind, of course, but in his.
He sulked past me, down to the street where he silently dug us out from the wake from the township snowplow, shoveling his way back up the driveway towards my work. The silent treatment ensued and tensions arose.
Then my wife came out, announcing it was her turn to leave “right away” without respect to the efforts to clear the path.
No, she would need to wait, too, as I again stubbornly refused to gain way until blacktop appeared all the way to the street. She eventually conceded, then sulked into her sedan to await her chance to leave, obviously disgusted with my lack of cooperation. More tension in the cold, morning air.
Once again, I had the bad guy label. Hard feelings had emerged between me and my son. An anxious wife made it worse. One more incident and things might boil over.
Then it happened.
Jean decided to turn her car around to drive forward through part of the plowed pathway. All fine, except in her haste she neglected to check her bumper for the push broom leaning against it. I had used the broom to clear her car of snow. As she backed up, the broom passed under the chasse, and it sounded like a rusty can of nuts and bolts being shaken slowly and methodically.
That was it. I couldn’t hold in any more frustration, or in psychology terms, “anger transference’ was about to overtake my reactions.
“Hey!” She didn’t hear me. Crunch, crunch .
Then much louder, “HEY, HEY! What the hell are you doing?” That was the end of the PG-rated part of my rant. The rest was a brief series of curses seen in movies like “Pulp Fiction” and “Goodfellas,” the likes of which were quite unfamiliar to our household, as I ran towards the object now jammed under the front axle. What a mess, I thought.
After a moment of tugging and pushing, I pulled the pieces away and held them up as a badge of honor bearing witness to the verbal assault as the cost of admission, in clear earshot to my teenage son and, probably, half the neighborhood. Yet, despite any pride from busting my tail to get the driveway cleared, something else was definitely wrong here.
A few minutes later, when we finished up and as I silently waved goodbye to Jean in her red sedan backing away, I started to reflect. Yes, the driveway was clear. My son’s breakfast date (really?) would have to wait for another day, and we would need to buy another push broom. Yet, looking back, I can’t see how much I would have changed in my behavior – except for the rant. All my decisions made sense:
Pat ought to have responsibility for the driveway in turn for use of a car. Check.
Jean ought to have respected the time and hard work I spent to get a path down to the open road. Check.
It was my own mistake of leaving the broom leaning against her car. Oops.
Too many stresses in too-short a time period created the rant that now feels very hollow. At the time I chose not to dwell on this. Now, it seems that I was the one at fault.
The rare outburst left me wondering why cursing is such a relief valve for pent-up frustration? I imagine it has something to do with our inability to control things around us. Yet, the real takeaway was how behavior as a parent has more influence than you might think. I now wonder how my tirade was received by my son, Pat. Part of me believes it will be forgotten, yet another, unforgettable.
Despite everything, I still am quietly proud that I tried hard over the last two decades to raise my sons in a non-swearing environment. I actually can see the fruits of my labor in the boys’ generally pleasant demeanors and methods of expression. This really is a good trait to instill in their personalities. I still cringe at families where this is not the case. Just as I now cringe at what happened in my own driveway.
I can only hope that, despite losing this most recent battle against swearing, that I have ultimately won the war. The victory will be seen my grandchildren, just as my Dad, I hope, saw in me and my two sons.
Photo: Flickr/Nathan Callahan