Why Jerel Loves Snow

 After a couple days stuck at home there was one day when I had to get to work. It was payroll day and if I didn't go in none of our employees would get their paychecks. For some reason that tends to upset people. We had chains for my car so all that needed to be done was shovel out the driveway. (Surprisingly my car just doesn't have the clearance to make it over a foot of snow). The really fun part is that we don't own a snow shovel. This is Oregon! We have a rain shovel of course, but who needs a snow shovel? Anyway, it took Jerel three hours to get my half of the driveway dug out. You can tell from the picture that not only was he having tons of fun, but he also LOVES it when I take his picture.

You will have to check with him to find out if it was more fun shoveling the driveway or installing the tire chains. He got the chains on just like the instructions said and off we went. About 15 feet before the awful ch-chunk, ch-chunk started. He says "grremppff" and I say cheerfully "I think it's normal to have to retighten them after a little ways." So he got out and tightened them and we were all set. For another 15 feet until it started again. WARNING: this is going to be a long posting.

So I say "Let's stop at Les Schwab and have them check to see if they're on right." NOTE: never accuse a man who just spent 4 hours getting things ready to take you to work of doing something wrong. So we (along with half of Hillsboro) show up at Les Schwab and we get in a really long line. The old lady in front of me in line said "The snow sure does bring people together doesn't it?" And I said "grremppff." Finally they get our car up on a lift and tighten up the chains. That's great and all except that we don't happen to have a lift in our garage, so how are WE supposed to do it next time?

Anyway, off to work we go. This time it was at least 50 feet before the ch-chunking started again. I called my boss and he said he'd take care of payroll since he has the ability to work from home. So that was off my plate, but we still have this chains problem and we are supposed to leave for Utah that afternoon and chains are required on many of the roads along the way.

Back to Les Schwab. I find the same guy who helped us earlier and he says he'll swap us out for a smaller set. So Jerel gets to go out in the snow and take off the old ones. I bring them in and ask the guy "Is there any way someone can put these on for us? We're heading out of town and we want to be sure they're on correctly." He says, surveying the line of the other half of Hillsboro that showed up, "Not really." He heads outside to give Jerel the new chains and discovers that we're heading to Utah and are LDS. So is he! Suddenly we're at the front of the line and someone is installing our chains and he's telling us how to get reimbursed for a new set of hubcaps since the first set of chains ruined mine. I guess it pays to be a peculiar people sometimes.

In the end I made it into work for a few hours and then we headed off to Utah for the holiday festivities.