On Monday, the contractors came and built our new fence. On Wednesday, I found a guy with a dumptruck and nine cubic yards of dirt that he was willing to deliver to our house for free. On Friday, he brought it over -- and dumped it in the middle of the street.
And so, our Friday night began with the police stopping by the house just as G was getting home to tell her that we needed to move the dirt over to the side of the street right away or else we'd get a ticket. So she called me and I rushed home and, in the dark, we started shoveling...
nine. cubic. yards. of dirt.
About half an hour into it, when we were starting to realize that the two of us were never going to be able to move nine cubic yards of dirt out of the middle of the street by ourselves, a curious thing happened: one of our neighbors came out. And, after chatting for a few minutes, this neighbor decided that she would get her shovel and help us out. We didn't have the luxury of saying no.
So there we were, the three of us, shoveling dirt in the dark on a Friday night as cars zipped past.
Then, another 30 minutes later, another curious thing: another neighbor came out with his shovel. Another 20 minutes later, and again two more neighbors came out. By 8:00pm, we had about six neighbors helping or offering to help and most of the dirt pushed over to the side of the street.
What a strange but wonderful thing, to have neighbors who would come out of their homes and help you do something as unrewarding as shoveling dirt.
By 8:30pm, our odd crew had the dirt safely on the side of the road and out of the path of traffic -- which was an amazing feat if you had seen where we were just two hours earlier. After many thank-yous and promises to repay our neighbors one day by helping them shovel dirt out of the street should the need ever arise, we went inside, called for a pizza and collapsed on the couch, dirty, exhausted, and very, very thankful.