N started shoveling out the driveway but I begged him to let me do it. I love shoveling out driveways. I’m not very good at it but the activity gives me the illusion of living in a cold and snowy place. Also, I’m going stir-crazy and I’m in need of some physical activity. At work I’m always on my feet (I read while I walk. I also can’t talk on the phone unless I’m on the move. And I never sit down when I teach.)
Finally, N ceded the shovel and I headed out. But it wasn’t meant to be. After two shovelfuls, several men with scandalized facial expressions descended on the driveway and started going at it. Obviously, I wasn’t going to get rude and start explaining about physical activity and all that. They shoveled it all out in five minutes.
I’m very grateful and touched (chivalry is not dead!) but I’m afraid they will now go post on social media about terrible husbands who force their wives to shovel our driveways.
Clarissa's Blog 
When I was nine and a half months pregnant during a very snowy winter, I wanted to go out and shovel the driveway because I’d heard snow shoveling could bring on labor. But my husband was horrified at the thought that neighbors would see me shoveling in my condition and think he was a brute.
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This happened to me when we moved into our current house. I have a dinky electric lawnmower and a large-ish yard. In order to keep the grass mowed, I had to go out every dry day and use up the two batteries (about 20-30 minutes of mowing), then quit, let the batteries cool and recharge, and then go at it again the next day. I was getting a really efficient, not-too-strenuous regular workout, and benefitting from improved overall fitness and increased stamina. It was a good system! My neighbors will not let me do this. The lady across the street practically forced me to borrow her riding mower, and then the two guys, in two different houses, who live across the other street (corner house), started coming over and mowing my yard for me. I tried to explain that actually, I was getting a lot of benefit from it. They will not hear it. Short pudgy matrons cannot be allowed to mow their own grass 3-4 days a week. So now I bake them bread. What else can you do?
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I like the way you think.
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I guess instead of shovelling the snow, you’ll have to play in the snow! With or without Klara.
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“on social media about terrible husbands who force their wives to shovel our driveways”
On the positive side, the chances of him actually seeing such a thing probably reach into the negative numbers…
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😊😊
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My husband went out to shovel this morning – we got about 11 inches over 24 hours, and none of it had been cleared yet – and came in about 20 minutes later, bemused. Our next door neighbor – a recently divorced woman that’s our age – had come over with her snowblower to help out, just as he was beginning to try to chunk out the stuff the plow had piled at the end of the driveway. She ended up clearing basically the whole drive and both of our sidewalks. He was still shoveling the whole time, but only managed to clear maybe 1/4 of the driveway in the same time she cleared 3/4 plus two long sidewalks. He tells me that while he’s grateful for the power tool for the stuff at the bottom of the driveway because the plowed stuff is always so hard and heavy, he didn’t really want to be “rescued” as he’s really been looking forward to the workout (this is the first good snow we’ve had in several years). Apparently he tried “thanks so much, I can get the rest,” and when that didn’t work, told her that she needed to please leave him the rest because otherwise he’s going to have to “actually exercise today,” but she just kept clearing and he doesn’t know how to politely tell a woman to stop helping him.
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