So I had a bit of a rage moment and I think I scarred K for life with it. She’s seen me sarcastic, she’s seen me bitter, she’s seen me roll my eyes and seen me be annoyed. She has never seen me turn ourselves around swearing at the top of my lungs about how much my city’s snow removal sucks. Can I mention that it’s 90% privatized too?
Mommy, why does the snow hate my educational goals?
What happened was that the plows cleared the streets, which would have been well and fine if they had not DUMPED THE PACKED SNOW ONTO THE SIDEWALK high enough that I couldn’t get G’s stroller around it. Sadly my emergency contacts fell through and K could not get to school today. Instead of just stewing in the rage and eventually calming down, I called the city, lodged the complaint, was told that the sidewalk plows should be done by the end of the day and that my complaint will be looked at within 5 business days…..
Well….what good is that going to do?
In case anyone wants to know, I am a bit strict when it comes to education. School is the most important thing in K’s life right now and while she adores it and I make it fun, education is no joke. Missing school once in a while in Kindergarten I can get over, but due to an abomination known as the windchill yesterday and the plow incident today, I’m freaking out and getting paranoid. Why paranoid? Because I live in the 3rd shittiest ward in the entire city….and no one cares about the residents here.
We’re the last to get our sidewalks cleared after the hoity toity neighborhoods, we’re the last to get our streets cleaned in the summer, the last to get the mosquitoes sprayed. Since we’re high in Aboriginals, immigrants, and us under-the-poverty-line types, it’s not a big deal if we get to enjoy a few less days outside because we’re bombarded with mutant blood suckers. It’s not a big deal if our street looks dirty because hey, we’re all poor and dirty and no one is going to be visiting in our area anyway! It’s not a big deal that some of the poorest of our society can’t get around and get shit done. I mean, we’re all welfare queens who’ve got all day today and tomorrow and omg AMIRITE??
Um, no. My husband has started work. I am in this alone and despite the best network of friends…well…they gotta work too. They can’t drop everything because I’m having a shit fit. We can’t move because we don’t have the income to move. I certainly don’t have the time to shovel the area sidewalks all by myself, though if I did I’m sure I’d be a hero to my neighbours. My parent’s area? With less people and fancy cars? Already done yesterday. Core area where we need to get around so badly? They’ll get around to it. It’s amazing the paranoia you develop when you live in a forgotten area, because a little thing like a fucking snow plow not doing its proper job makes you think of how forgotten you are as a person. This city has SUCH a shitty attitude towards the core area and its residents. The worst part is that it comes from gross Conservative types who think Winnipeg is all that. Fellow Canucks, you know the kind….Toronto tastes with a Flin Flon budget. They’re oh so concerned about the image of the city though they don’t realize that maybe if they cared about ALL areas of the city equally, we’d be better off.
In the meantime, that little girl in the picture? She cried on the way back. Because she can’t go to school. She was looking forward to singing the Number Rock. Maybe next time I’ll get a note from the city asking the school to excuse her absence due to lack of proper planning and City Hall douchebaggery.
I remember when I was small my mother once getting so upset she threw and broke a wooden stepstool we had in the kitchen. It made a BIG impression but I don’t think I’m scarred for life about it
Hope K gets to sing the Number Rock tomorrow!
Oh I hear ya. And don’t even get me started on the issue of trashcans.
Because there are trashcans on every block near my school’s campus–aka where all the rich folk live (including most grad students). But in my neighborhood, where nearly everyone is poor and a minority and where there are plenty of immigrants, there are none. It’s infuriating. There’s glass everywhere because, there being no deposit laws in my new state, everyone just throws their glass bottles on the ground when they’re done with their drinks, since there are no trashcans and no incentive to recycle. And the plastic bottles jam up the curb drain-thingys, so the streets are always flooded whenever it rains because the plastic coke bottles prevent the rain water from draining into the sewers. It’s fucking disgusting. And guess what: poor folk have to walk more than rich folk! We have less money for gas! We have fewer cars!
And I live in constant fear that my dog’s gonna step in some glass and cut his paw. And then I go to the library and I see firefighters out front helping to shovel snow to make it easier to park, despite the fact that 1. my neighborhood is like a miserable snow/ice amusement park of hell and 2. hardly anyone’s even going to the library, what with classes on break for winter vacation and all! It’s crazypants!
Ugh, they did this on my street when I was growing up. Probably they still do. It was really frustrating for my ten-year-old self to climb over three blocks worth of snow piles to get to a place that I didn’t want to go to in the first place. :p Also, some of the snow piles concealed cars, though I was fortunate enough not to ever damage one and get in trouble. (They piled most of the snow on one side of the street, but the other sidewalk always became a river of ice for some reason, so no help there.)
Poor K! I hope tomorrow’s better for both of you, MA.
We had a huge blowup here last year when we had 2 unusually large snowfalls within a few days of each other. The mayor, who is an utter dunce, decided, in spite of the weather forecasts, to go to a ski resort about 90 minutes away-for his birthday. Then he couldn’t get back to deal with the completely inadequate job his public works people were doing. Someone actually died because EMS refused to walk to their house to take them to the hospital. It was a complete clusterf***.
Sorry. Maybe if you’re brave (and also want to go through the trouble) you could see if your local news station/paper would want to do a story on it.
“Toronto tastes with a Flin Flon budget.”
Canadian attitude metaphor WIN!
This is way off-topic, but mosquito spraying? We still do that? *iz a clueless suburbanite*
@Brennan
Every summer Winnipeg gets horribly infested with mosquitos, including species that carry the West Nile virus. It is literally unbearable in the summer to go outside and these little fuckers think your bug spray is a joke. It’s not just a nuisance, it’s on par with the 7 plagues of Egypt.
So yes, we spray.