Girl Power

How exactly did Cory end up to be the character that she was?

Let me tell you a story.

I have sometimes felt I was born in the wrong decade, and picture myself as a housewife in the fifties, with a squeaky clean kitchen, content to iron my husband's shirts, while looking fresh and delicious in one of those fabulous dresses, wearing lipstick and heels at home in the daytime...clickety-clack.  Of course, I realize if I indeed had that, I would no doubt be miserable, dreaming of working outside the home, showing my husband that my brain was of as much value as my tiny waist that looked so fetching in those belted dresses.

You always want what you can't have, right?

Well, one particular winter as a single parent to my teen-aged daughter and young son, what I desperately wanted was a man to shovel my driveway for free.  We got absolutely dumped on; the kids had a snow day, and the rest is history:

It started out as a "family effort".  Jake had his tiny plastic shovel, mostly for show, you understand, and Cory had a shovel surely meant for gardening, if such things actually took place on my property.  I grabbed the snow shovel, and together we trudged down our long driveway, ready to finish this little task up in five minutes or so.

By the time the snot had begun to run clearly down their faces, the kids put down their shovels and fled.  Cory promised me hot cocoa when I came in, and backed away, a look of horror on her face, "Sorry, Mom, I just didn't realize snow was so heavy, and I can't feel my feet anymore."

Yeah, yeah.  I branded them both deserters, and hit my angry music playlist on my I-pod.  I'd shovel for about three minutes steadily, and then bend over, winded.  I have always been skinny, but not necessarily fit.  I could not believe the barbaric nature of this chore, and vowed to eat more, as I had a snow blower, but not enough ass to get the stupid thing started.

Eventually, I was sweating so much, I had to strip off my sub-zero puffer coat.  Every time I looked up, positive I was nearly done, I would glance up the driveway, and see my progress was actually about a foot and a half.  Some emotions were stirred during this shovel-thon:  mainly bad ones, and aimed at the men not currently in my life...you wanna talk deserters, let's talk deserters.

I was getting myself quite worked up by this point.  How dare these men just leave me holding the shovel?  I had borne their seed!  We had had legal and and non-legal sacred unions together.  You can't shovel my effin driveway?!  Didn't they know men are generally physically stronger than women for one reason?  To move snow!

I started thinking about Ma and Pa Ingalls in Little House on the Prairie, and was pretty sure this was not the way the crap went down in The Long Hard Winter.  Surely, Pa would come in from the blowing snow after milking the cows, and currying the horses or some crap, place a strong hand on Ma's collarbone the way he always did, and say, "Hey girl...I love the way you churned that butter...the snow removal's all me."

I can't get a Pa?  For real, guys?

Half-way through, I turned this back breaking Godforsaken task into a test of my personal character.  I would clear this driveway for my children, and show them we didn't need a man!  I could do whatever needed doing.  By the time I'd made it two thirds of the way to the end, fearing a coronary
event at any moment, I'd decided I could do anything, as long as I had my kids.  Give me some scrap
lumber and a bucket full of nails, and I'd build a lean-to outside the backdoor, and stock it with homemade apple butter.

I may have stopped once to call my mom and say my final goodbyes, the way I am always tempted to do when I feel the end is near.  Mom, who I suspect has never shoveled a driveway in her lifetime with my father (a true Pa sort of man), sounded dubious, but encouraging, and not quite sure what all my dramatics were about.

With the last shovelful flung weakly to the side, I dropped the shovel where I stood, and made my way to the house.  I was out of breath, hot, yet freezing, fed up with the opposite sex, yet strangely exhilarated...victorious, really.

I crawled up the two steps of our landing, fell to my knees in the dining room, and with a loud cry, whipped my shirt off to my bra.  Jacob looked on, mouth agape, as Cory turned to me from her place at the counter, where she was making hot cocoa while safely cocooned in a snuggie, and said,
 "Oh my God, woman, what are we going to do with you?"