Saturday, February 9, 2013

Damned Annoying Conscience...


When much younger I'd leap at the chance to help someone. “No problem!” I'd say.


Well, after being taken and used by unscrupulous selfish pigs, I wised up. I started picking and choosing just who I'd rescue. There were many times I'd could've offered a helping hand but quietly held back, saving myself  the effort and grief.


Like every one else this morning, I kicked open the storm door as a snow drift had tried to entomb me in my own house. I managed to move a few feet out onto the sidewalk and stood there, gawking at the other, higher snow drifts, my buried car and the unplowed street.


“It's gonna take me half a day to dig that car out and the other half to dig the walkways out...shit.” I thought.


As I was inching along the sidewalk by my kitchen door, slinging the snow over, my neighbor, a much older, very alone women, chimes in from her upstairs window.


“Ronnnnnnie! Ronnnnnie! Could you dig me out?”


Immediately I turned around and said this: “I'll see what I can do old girl, this is one hell of a snowstorm.” And then broke off that conversation and back to shoveling. I said that to toss plenty of cold water on her idea. I quickly surmised that the TON of work shoveling would be doubled had I agreed to dig her out also.


So, I kept digging along, having a conversation with myself on whether I'd do it.


“Son of a bitch...it's bad enough I'm trying to burrow my way to the street...I have to do it again next door?”


I finished up, came in, pulled off my frozen jeans and sat down for a good two hours before I started noticing a nagging sound in my head.


“Ronnnnieee....”


I then think.


“She's near 80, she's weak, she can't escape, she feels trapped...Oh for God's sake...What else were you going to do today anyway? Watch TV? Clean the house? (Christ, I won't do that!), Blow time on the internet? Get out there and help her.”


So, back out I went. I dug away, tossing that heavy crap onto her lawn. I managed to free her to the yet unplowed street I live on. “Well, it gives her some sense of not being trapped.” I thought.


Perhaps, if I make it to near 80, someone might do this for me, I’ll need it then.


Pay it forward they say. But that doesn't mean I enjoyed it.

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