Woke up and felt well rested this morning.

Somethin' wrong here.

Checked the watch. Five minutes to eight. How did I sleep through the wife and youngest son getting up and ready for work and school?

Easy. She's still in bed beside me. Sound asleep.

Quickly rousted the wife, admonishing her over the time, then dashed out to wake the boy. She's supposed to be at work at 0800, and he has 'til 0820 before school starts. And both places are six miles away.

I went into panic mode, rushing to pee, then let the heelers out to do the same, then throwing a large glass of water in the microwave.

Wife calmly called work, and let them know she overslept. A quick check on her clock showed the little red dot was set for PM, not AM, and the alarm would not have sounded for another 12 hours. She does that sometimes when she is terribly tired (like last night, after the long, snowy drive home from college town).

As the two of them went through their routines, I threw on clothes and started the Explorer, and unplugged it. No need to scrape the windows. Thermometer said 6^o.

At 0805 the wife's godson called. Wondering where his ride to school was. Recommended he start walking. Still no sign of expediency by wife or son.

Fix wife's coffee from microwaved water, and set it in the car. By 08:10 they are out the door and on the road, still nonplussed.

I, on the other hand, am full of adrenalin. And patrol the sidewalks with my snowshovel, looking for stray avalanches to clear.

I have never mentioned the sadistic side of heeler personalities. They are all fully aware of the importance I place on keeping snow off every square centimeter of the concrete walks. And fully delight in knocking the snow back on at every opportunity.

The masked heeler is the worst. Two main tricks. First is to simply walk down the walk, shoving her face into the snow bank as she goes, yielding several meters of narrow snowslides.

Her more enjoyable stunt is to charge across the lawn towards me when I am on the walk, then spread all four feet out in a breaking maneuver at the edge of the lawn that throws a plume of snow deeply across the walk.

The maskless heeler is usually more dainty and less destructive, simply stepping on the banks as she goes by, creating minor snow piles. But she has her moments.

When this main storm was through hitting our country, and I had the walks all clear, I set in on clearing the snow where the hatch of the Explorer would be when the wife came home. And turned to see the little maskless heeler simply digging into the meter-high pile of snow besides the back steps, shoveling the snow back on the walk as quickly as she could.

And they pulled one of their nastiest tricks today, as we came back from the post office. I wear my western boots, simply because they are easy to get on and off, and have to watch my step as they have practically no traction.

Which allows me to use the heelers as a dogsled team, pulling me across the snow-packed intersection. But the town has been unusually negligent in plowing the streets after this storm, leaving them full of ruts and bumps.

So, on the return trip, the two sisters took off across the intersection at the usual full gallop, and midway dumped me on my ass. And side, and shoulder. A crash to the ice worthy of an Olympic champion.

Masked heeler made an immediate return loop to see if I was alive, and realizing I was laughing and not cursing, returned to assist her sister in dragging my carcass through the snow.

And the berm is still there. One of our good Samaritan townsmen used his ATV to plow the walks of the folks to the west of us (the ones with the wet, limp flag hanging from the porch) and simply pushed all their snow onto our walk.

Well, I removed the huge pile on our sidewalk. And left the third of the pile that was still on their side of the property line.

As in, I shaved that pile right down the line. And it's still there.

Petty, I know. I normally shovel a couple feet into their walks (not because I'm nice, but because I'm anal and cannot leave a square of concrete partially shoveled... I have to stop at a crack). And I have occassionally shoveled to their gate. Or even to the corner.

But not when their compadre collects their snow and dumps it where I have to shovel.

Bet it's there until it melts.