Digging Deep: The Semiotics of Snow Shoveling

Sounds like an essay title, doesn't it? I bet you can tell what I've been spending a lot of my time doing. Much as I bitch and moan about having to grind out a new essay every single week, to be posted online for all in the class to read and critique (so it better not suck), I have been getting a lot out of the class. Even my everyday thoughts are going in new directions. We've spent a month analyzing the semiotics of popular culture (in other words, the underlying meanings beneath things), so I find myself thinking about these things during my everyday life.

Consider snow shoveling. On the surface, it's usually thought of as just a (somewhat annoying, time-consuming) chore that it would be nice not to have to do or have to pay someone else to do. (Here's where my thoughts on consumption come in.) I hate paying someone else to do it. I remember when I first moved here, someone with a shovel rang our doorbell and offered to shovel the driveway. I said, "Sure," thinking he was a staff member of the town house association and it was included in our fee. When he finished and asked for money, I was kind of annoyed at myself for assuming. If I had known I would have to pay, I would have just said no thanks.

Every winter since, enterprising people, mostly young men, have tromped up our steps (packing down the snow with their boots, making it harder for me to shovel it later) to ring the doorbell and ask if we wanted shoveling. I got tired of either saying no or pretending I wasn't home.

Clearly, it was time to make a sign so they wouldn't bother us. It would be great if the sign would also discourage aggressive sales people and religious proselytizers (who annoy me even more). I fantasized about saying something like, "No selling. No snow shoveling. No evangelizing. Don't even ask. It's a standing 'no' and will always be a 'no.'" But that just seemed a tad too unwelcoming sounding to post on our front door, so I settled for a polite, "Please No Soliciting."

Unfortunately, the doorbell just keeps on ringing. Now I just find it annoying that either 1) people don't bother to look and read it, or 2) they don't know the meaning of the word "soliciting." I have been known to (politely) come down to answer the door, call their attention to the sign and explain that we don't want to be bothered, even though I may be seething with annoyance inside.

Before I got so busy, I used to have tons of time in the middle of the day to preemptively get the shoveling done before the entrepreneurs started their rounds. I actually like doing it; 1) it's functional fitness in action and 2) I can get a workout and avoid paying money at the same time--what's not to love?

Our next-door neighbor, Tom, is sometimes home in the middle of the day. (He's maybe in his mid-thirties with a high-powered wife and two little kids.) I think he feels rather strongly that shoveling is men's work, and he thinks it's odd that I'm the one doing it (and not Paul). On those few occasions that we're shoveling at the same time, he'll say something like,"What are you, Wonder Woman or something? I never see him doing it." I always explain that I consider it to be part of my fitness regimen and I'm happy to do it because I'm the one who has the time, but he'll say something like that every time without fail, as if we never had the conversation.

I think my conscientiousness brings out his competitive instincts. If I do it by mid-afternoon, his is done by 5 pm. If I don't have time for a day or two, oddly enough, he'll be content to let it wait at least 24 hours. It snowed on Thursday last week and I didn't have time to deal with it until Saturday afternoon. Tom had done his by Friday morning. We decided to let him revel in his victory. Paul and I find this dynamic endlessly amusing. As Paul said, "Well, now I can't ever do it because then we would be playing appropriate gender roles." We both agree that wouldn't be any fun.