Civil Disobedience

As you may recall, I live on a corner, so I have sidewalks on two sides of my house. One of these sidewalks connects to the street and to another sidewalk, and is generally used by people in the neighborhood to walk places. The other dead-ends at my driveway and there is no sidewalk on the rest of the block, so it's pretty much useless if your goal is to avoid walking in the street (unless you're visiting me). After the last big snow, I didn't shovel the sidewalk to nowhere because, well, it goes nowhere. Naturally, some West Hartford busybody called the town to complain, the cops came to my house, and I had to devote about four hours to chipping away six inches of ice so some snitch could avoid twenty feet of street.

Well, it snowed yesterday, and I wasn't about to repeat my mistake - my feeling is that if the cops are going to be showing up at my house, I want it to be for something really cool. But I wanted to let that anonymous complainer know that while I may have suffered a defeat, I continue to hold my head high, stick to my principles, etc. Although I was tempted to spraypaint "fuck you" on the snow, elementary school kids walk by there and I do actually want to be a good neighbor. Instead, I figured that if this person really wants to stroll to my driveway so much, he or she would appreciate a longer stroll. Also, I want to see if someone really has the moxie to call the cops because I shoveled my sidewalk in a zig-zag rather than a straight line. So to the unknown West Hartfordite who demands unfettered access to my driveway, I say, "Your move."


(Click on the picture to see a larger version.)