It’s a great morning in Arvada, Colorado. It snowed four inches last night and I have a new snow blower.

(Technically, it’s a “snow thrower.” A snow thrower has only one stage that uses the auger to “throw” the snow out the chute. A “snow blower” has two stages: the auger and a fan in the chute that blows the snow out and further. I know this because I googled it.)

I love my snow blower. Snow blowers are to men what Tonka Toys are to boys. Finally, my dreams of getting outside and using a powerful machine to effortlessly move massive amounts of something somewhere else are coming true.

That is, if I can beat my neighbor to the punch. For example, before we moved last year, we had an obnoxiously nice neighbor who had a snowblower too. Sometimes, after a snow storm, he’d get out before I could and clear off our entire block-long sidewalk.

“Rats! Honey, Skip is clearing our sidewalk!” I would shout with irritated alarm as I peeked through the blinds.

Then I would hurriedly jump into my ski pants, don my coat, and slip on my ski goggles and rabbit fur hat with floppy ears.

“At least he didn’t do my driveway,” I’d think as I started up my snowblower.

Sometimes, after I’d finish my driveway, I’d see him at the end of the block finishing the sidewalk and I’d sneak over and do his driveway just to spite him.

“Take that, Obnoxiously Nice Neighbor!”

This winter our recent move has given us new neighbors. But, alas, our neighbor to the west of us has a snowblower too. Fortunately, during our last snow storm he only cleared the snow off the sidewalk to the west of him. I had the entire sidewalk to the east all to myself.

There’s also a widow and a neighbor with asthma on our block who will need their driveways cleared. That means I have three driveways and sidewalk galore to clear every time it snows.

Looks like I’ve moved to snow blower heaven.

This post first appeared in NewCommandment.org.