snow day, part two
I called my boss."I'm going to the park to build a snowman," I said.
"Yeah I'm not going in either."
"OK, see you later."
He's a cool boss.
I stomped in the snow, down the sidewalk toward the park. I was anxious to get there and start my snowman before a lot of people fucked the snow up.
I wanted it all for myself.
I stopped off at a grocery for some duct tape. My left boot has a rip in it, but a couple of yards of tape patched that right up. Waterproof once more, I headed for the park.
It was beautiful. The snow hugged the ground perfectly, softening the curves of the rolling hills, like a blanket covering a sleeping woman. People and their dogs ran around, hooting and yelling. Everyone was smiling.
I was quite enjoying myself.
I slithered, wallowed, and generally farted around in the snow until I had a sizeable snowball going. Snowman production had begun.
I got the second tier done, and as I was putting it up on the first level, I had an idea. I took my car key out, and was going to use it to carve my snowman a buttcrack, but I thought better of it. It was a family park, after all.
I topped the snowman off with a pointy head, dug him a mouth, and gave him some stick arms.
For some reason his facial features seemed to indicate great pain.
Perhaps it was his unfortunate lack of a buttcrack.
I admired him a bit, took his photo, and set off for other parts of the park. I saw a bridge off in the distance, and walked over to get a look at it.
I also saw a strange sculpture-ish roundey thing.
I stomped more in the snow. I could only see a little bit of the world in front of me, due to my stocking cap pulled low, and my scarf over my mouth. I imagined I was the Ice Man, master of all things snow, ice, or just kind of cold water.
"I am Ice Man!" I said. "Arrrr!".
Arrrrr?
"I am Pirate Ice Man! Arrrr!"
As I was laughing about this, and looking around to see if anyone had heard me and might possibly reaching for something to brain me with, I found a memorial bench. It was frosted with snow, and someone had put flowers on it. They had to have put the flowers on recently, or they would have been wilted and limp. They were nice looking flowers.
The inscription said:
Jack Stice
Friend, Lover, FatherYou are greatly missed.
I hope when I die that someone will do something like that for me. I'd rather be remembered as a bench in the park than taking up a plot of ground somewhere that no one can hang around on. When I go, burn me up, shoot my ashes into space (or at least out of a cannon), and get me a bench with my name on it.
I took a shortcut through the park back to check on my snowman, past the rotunda that overlooks the pond.
I stopped there to take a picture, and I heard someone mumbling.
A man was sleeping inside the rotunda.
I felt very glad to have a warm home to go to, and very appreciative that I come to the park to visit, not to sleep. I had a lot of fun playing around in the snow today, but the homeless man sleepin in the rotunda was a reminder to me that most of the rest of my fellow human beings did not have as much fun as I did.
I am very lucky.
When I got back to my snowman, I noticed that he had a strange spot of yellow at his base.
My snowman had been peed.
The owners of whatever miserable cur was so careless as to urinate on my already somewhat-pained looking snowman had hastily tried to cover the pee spot up with a handful of fresh snow.
It was a family park, after all.
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