Honestly...

Although Canada is not entirely a land of perpetual ice and snow (there are areas that broadly fit the description, but the vast majority of the population eschews them) winter does inevitably bring some of the white stuff. It had snowed off and on for several days. Altogether, there was about 20-30 cm of snow in my office parking lot.

Normally, that would not be too much of an issue, because a business would have an arrangement in place with a snow-removal service to deal with this sort of thing. Like much of life, this moment did not quite qualify to fit with the concept of "normally". My office had only officially become mine a few days earlier, and we had not yet moved into the building.
The contractor doing the leasehold improvements had finished just as the snow began falling. I was there alone, with a touque, a telephone, and a rapidly cooling paper cup full of dark-roast. And, the movers were on their way into town with all our stuff.

I found out how truly kind and considerate my fellow Canadians are, as I called around to get a Bobcat service to come and clear my 20-metre square lot. Not a single operator laughed at me (at least, not loud enough to be heard over the phone) as I was being told that they were either "swamped" and unable to consider us for several days or that they themselves were staying put and not heading out until after it stopped snowing. Being a relatively quick learner, it only took eight or ten of these calls before I concluded that, as usual, we were on our own. And, the movers were still coming.

Snowshovel in hand, touque on head, I went out to exert mastery over our newly acquired little piece of the environment.

It was going reasonably well. Slow, dreary and soul-destroying, yes, yet no more so than I expected. For the first two hours I chipped away. Literally, as the 15-25 cm soft fluffy icing-like layer hid a 5 cm ice layer fused to the exposed agregate of the parking lot surface. Occasionally the rattle of apporaching diesel fuel injectors would interrupt my stream of muttered epithets and I would look up to see if it was the now overdue moving truck. Usually it was a 4-wheel drive pickup carrying its occupants on some unknown errand. Most disheartening were the plow trucks that rolled past, not coming to my rescue, not slowing down. Not even a sympathetic nod from the driver. As I said, it was going reasonably well. I had not yet pierced the toe of my boot with the corner of the snowshovel that had been honed to a savage edge by the conctete of the driveway. My supraspinatus tendons were at that point still intact and causing no pain whatsoever. No road salt had yet worked its way under my upper right eyelid. I was just busy, exasperated, and peeved that I had to be doing manual labour when there were clients I could be billing instead.

About that time, a figure walked up. His trouser cuffs were tucked into his boot-tops. His hands jammed deep into the pockets of his parka. The tip of his HS810 was just peeking out from under his touque. "Are you open?" he called. I recognized the voice immediately as one of my regulars. He had known about the move from being in to see me at the old out of town office on the last day before we shut it down to pack and portage. He had also taken away a notifcation card that gave the address of this new place. Clearly, he had read the card. Perhaps not the part about our openning date though--it was still three days away.

"I called your office but there was no answer. I was in the neighbourhood anyway, so I thought I would drop by. Are you open?"

God bless him. He offered to help me shovel.