In August of 98, my fiancée, Jim, and I purchased a house. It has a nice sized lot, which put Jim in TRACTOR Mode. We had a perfectly good push mower and it was nearing the end of grass cutting season, so I saw no need at that time to make any more big purchases. Jim, however, was a man possessed. He brought up the subject at every opportunity. He had tractor envy. He went as far as to start cutting out little pictures of riding mowers and strategically placing them all over the house. Every time I opened a door or cabinet, I was assaulted with tractors. I did not give in. No tractor! Eventually, I won the battle, but not the war.

In December, as luck would have it, our elderly neighbor had an extra tractor that he sold to us at a very good price. You would think that Jim would have been mollified. Noooooooo. Can you guess the accessory that was necessary? You got it! It was imperative that he have a snowplow. He went from tractor envy to snowplow envy.
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The sure way to not get snow in my neck of the woods, is to purchase a snowplow or snow blower. Jim had been shoveling our driveways all winter long (the 2 times we had snow) and since we had acquired the tractor at such a steal, he thought it only right to buy a snowplow. His constant begging, pleading and whining, that would have rivaled any spoiled 3-year-old, drove me to the edge of insanity and in the end, we bought a snowplow for our tractor. So Jim, with plow newly attached, set out to plow the rest of the drive, but the tractor wouldn't go, it needed ......snow chains. So a quick and expensive trip to the tractor store bought us snow chains. The tractor worked like a charm, but later that evening all the snow melted, and of course we did not get another flake of snow the rest of the winter. NOT A WORD, NOT A WORD, was all I heard out of him the rest of the winter.

So far this year, much to Jim's disappointment, he has only got to use the snowplow 2 times. (And if you want to know the truth, there really wasn't enough snow to warrant using the plow, in fact, a good push broom would have more than sufficed, but we bought that snowplow and he was going to use it!)

All winter long, I have watched with wry amusement the look of longing in Jim's eyes as he would sit on the edge of the couch, hands wringing anxiously while he awaited the weather forecast for news of impending snow. Only to be crestfallen when we only received a dusting that melted before he even got out of bed.

Well, after many false alarms, yesterday, we received about 5 inches of snow. Jim bounced out of bed, as if he was Tigger himself, and quickly donned his insulated coveralls, boots and stocking cap. (New attire that had been purchased especially for this snow season.) He was ready. He had waited a whole year for this day and he ran (literally) to the garage with the glazed look of a mad man on his face that would be scary if it wasn't so amusing. The fact that he had put the snow chains and plow on the tractor in AUGUST should in itself say something of his dementia.

He started up the old tractor and began plowing. My fiancée was in his glory scraping all the driveways in the neighborhood with a gleam in his eyes and a smile on his face. He looked like a child on Christmas morning. And I can swear I heard the Tim-the-Tool-Man-Taylor grunts as he was driving by me.

The children and I went sled riding, and built a snowman, but I could tell that Jim was having much more fun. After he had plowed our two driveways and several of the neighbors', carved a place on the road for the mail man and the garbage truck, he came back and I could tell immediately that something was wrong. The look of elation that had shown on his face only moments earlier was replaced by a look so sad, it could only be compared to a child whose dog had just died. I asked him what was wrong, and was told his beloved tractor had broken a clutch. Poor thing.

I can only imagine what the doctor bill will be.