The Bane of my Winter Existence

This….stick….is the bane of my winter existence.



Invariably, every December I innocently leave our home to run errands one day…and when I return home our driveway is miraculously lined with about 1,652 of those things. 

In Bill’s mind, the sticks are spaced perfectly apart giving me an extra two feet on each side of the van to drive up the driveway each day.

In my mind, the sticks are spaced so that I have approximately one itsy-bitsy inch of space on each side of the van while I'm maneuvering my way through The Arthur Clan obstacle course each day.

And I have this little problem that I need to confess.  My little problem is that  I don’t see the sticks.


I honestly and truly don't see them.  It makes Bill absolutely crazy because I always seem to run over one of them on the very first day he puts them up.  And then I run over a second one a few days later.  And then maybe a third one.  Or fourth one.

I’ll just stop there, but I'm sure you get the picture.

I used to handle the situation with Plan A which involved zipping my lips and keeping my mouth shut until he noticed that another stick was down {which was usually on his way out the driveway to go to work the next day.}

Before he had even left the driveway I would hear our home phone ring {which I ignored under the guise that I was way too busy to answer the phone because I was getting all four children ready for school.}

Then my cell phone would ring.  Ignore!


The home phone would ring again.  Ignore!


I don’t like to talk on the phone anyway, but I refuse to talk on the phone when I know I’m going to be yelled at.

Last year I came up with a new plan...a little plan I like to call Plan B.  Now when I run over a stick, I just walk in the house and yell “Did you see that I ran over another stick?!”

Since Bill is usually standing at the living room window watching me drive up the driveway the typical response is a disgusted “yes" that he growls at me.

Or, if I run over a stick when I am leaving the house…I will then just flash my lights at Bill and honk the horn since I know he’s standing at the front window shaking his head in disgust at me.  This brings me great joy.

My new plan worked wonderfully until I was leaving our house the other day and noticed that a stick had been run over and I was 159% sure that I had not run it over.  Oh, was I mad.  “I am so going to be blamed for running over that stick when I actually did not run it over for the first time in my life!!” I said to myself in my head.

Bill was in Michigan on business but when he returned home the first words out of my mouth were “There is a stick laying in the driveway and I DID NOT RUN IT OVER.”

“I know.” he replied.

I was flabbergasted.  “Did you run over the stick?”  (Oh this would give me material to rib him for years if he did.)

“No, the guy who picked me up to drive to Michigan today…he ran over the stick.”

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you dear guy who drove Bill to Michigan the other day.  Next time that I run over a stick I can just tell Bill “Hey – men all over Ohio are running over sticks.  Just think of that guy that drove you to Michigan!  It’s the Ohio-thing to do now.  If you are a true man or woman in the Buckeye state, you run over sticks.”

At least that's Part I of my new improved Plan C.

I think it's a keeper.



P.S.  I am changing this post to add this information (that I added as a comment below):
I am laughing so hard that some of you don't know what those sticks are for. Oh how I wish I were you!!

Our driveway is really long and we get a LOT of snow every year. So, in Ohio you will see them lining a lot of the driveways. Basically they are there so that Bill knows where to plow when we get a snowstorm.

And (of course) so that I can run them over.