The First Straw
by: Billy Collins
The camel felt nothing
as it stood outside the tent,
its nose lifted in the desert air.
It has been a camel's back-breaking kind of day.
I woke this morning to snow. A lot of it. And wind. A lot of it. And school closings (including the university). A lot of them. It wasn't a surprise. The National Weather Service had given ample warning (from Winter Storm Watch to Winter Storm Warning to Blizzard Warning), so it's not like I was standing outside my house, nose lifted in the winter air, oblivious to the oncoming apocalypse.
But yesterday, there was yellow-to-green grass all over, and spring seemed not a distant hope but a distinct possibility. I could smell mud. Always a good sign. Now I'm staring at piles of plowed snow as tall as myself, and my body is sore from six or seven rounds with my shovel. In short, I feel as if warmth and blossoms have flown to Walt Disney World for an extended vacation, and I'm left behind to clean things up.
That in itself feels like a last-straw moment, not a first-straw.
Spent the day working from home, answering emails, writing scripts, scheduling and rescheduling events. All that in between taking my puppy out to bark at snow blowers and sniff around for those places where she's pissed. (Don't eat yellow snow.)
It is almost 7 p.m. now. The snow is still snowing, wind is still winding, and the National Weather Service has amended its predictions, calling for another nine inches of white by 8 a.m. tomorrow morning. (I'm a little exhausted and am tempted to stand outside and go all ape-shit at the next plow that blasts by my driveway.)
Saint Marty's well of wisdom is dry tonight. Snow in April just plain S-U-C-K-S.
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