Oh, Byron... (Intrinsically Helping the Neighbors)

Dear Byron,

You are a dick in the most literal sense of the word. Wait, I take that back. Dicks have uses. They're integral in the perpetuation of the species. Hell, one might even get you a damn good settlement in a car accident case or out of a murder rap. But you are an appendix wrapped in foreskin. You are truly a tumbling, tumbling dickweed. If I didn't have a relative basically dying of cancer right now, I'd probably like cancer better than you at this point. And if I wasn't so wiped out from shoveling snow for the last hour and a half I'd probably hit you with no less than two dozen pithy insults attacking your machismo, vaguely attractive wife and bonesmoking fuckup of a son.

But I'll get to that hour and a half of shoveling snow in a minute.

The reason why you're a notch above a child molester in my book right now is because you are an incompetent jizzbucket. You are and have been the mayor of not only the asshole of the world, but a town known for its fucked up weather. Random, frequent and copious downfalls of snow, always at the most opportune times. Like the last shopping weekend before Christmas for instance.

But that's a fact of life. You live in the midwest, tornadoes come with the territory. You live in California, the occasional earthquake is part of the deal. You want to reside in Florida or anywhere near the Gulf of Mexico, you best not piss and moan about drowning when it rains or having your house blown away when a hurricane comes to town. And I'm not crying about the snow that the rustbelt town I reside in is so famous for. I've lived here all my life and I'm used to it.

But what's frying my ass is the fact that there still, after years and years of this happening is still no real contingency plan for when the crippling, the sky is falling, this is it snowfall comes year after year. Oh sure, the major routes and streets get plowed within an hour and if you live on one of them you're golden. But what about the rest of us who live on the "tetriary roads?" And by tetriary (a word used by one of your staff members at your 411 self-service line to describe my street in its importance level when it comes to the priority of when it gets plowed) I'm guessing that means unimportant and negligible. And I guess this because in the last 5 years I've lived on this street I've seen it plowed no more than a dozen times. And before you think or say the word exaggeration or some variation thereof, don't. Just fucking don't.

And why should you or whatever relative/sexual finger puppet of yours you put in charge of keeping the roads plowed bother with my shitty little side street? Not a lot of traffic comes down it and after all, it is a one-way street. They're so bothersome, I know. And you've got to move your car to the other side of the street twice a week and OHMYGAHDCHANGETHECHANNELI'MSCARED...!!!

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure you want to look like you care, but I don't think you do as long as it looks like you do. Your whole 311 self-service thing looks good on paper, but the frustrated overworked and I'm guessing underpaid girl who answered my call to your help line yesterday did a decent job of leading me to believe she gave a baker's fuck about the fact there was a moving van stranded at the top of my street and the street was buried in snow. Yeah, A for effort there but when my street actually didn't get plowed today and every other street within a mile did I'm going to hate you more than Joel Schumacher. Don't get me wrong. When I got home from working and family holiday festivities it looked like somebody... thought about plowing my street but opted to go toss the salad of a 350-pound woman instead. A cousin of yours, perhaps? Wait a minute, let me take another guess. The ass clown who either did or was supposed to plow my street didn't get done before beer o'clock and had to improvise.

So when I got inside after getting everything out of the car that shouldn't spend the night in 10 degree weather my intention was to call your 311 line and verbally lambaste whichever poor bastard answered the line. So I call up this farce and you're only open weekdays from 8-4:30? Really? Seriously? And you've got to hire a guy who sounds like he's getting raped in a tin can and broadcast over AM radio to leave the message? And problems don't happen on weekends? If its a budget issue you can take the money you're fucking everyone from work zone speeding tickets out of by leaving those work zone signs up all winter long, doubling the fines even though there's not a soul out there working.

And I don't care if I don't have my facts even close to straight. My street isn't plowed, I live in Buffalo and you're the mayor of Buffalo. So fuck you right now. Fuck you in the face right now. And I also had to clear my car off (admittedly not your fault) but because I had to dig it out from either the non-existent or pisspoor plow job and clear a path for my wife's car in front of the neighbor's house (and of course ten seconds after she pulls out of the spot they're going to pull right in) so she can out in the morning because she has to work tomorrow--

Oh, yeah. That reminds me. What are all us unimportant and negligible street-dwelling folks supposed to do when Monday morning rolls around and we have to go to work? You know, we can't get off the street so what are we supposed to do? Just gun it and hope for the best? Given any thought to us, Byron? Or how about that additional 4-6 inches of snow, glorious snow that we're supposed to get by the early afternoon tomorrow. Or those 30-45 MPH winds that are going to blow the shit around for a few hours before we get more lake effect snow in the evening? Our shitty-looking street is going to look even shittier tomorrow. Oh, but I'm sure your Monday through Friday staff has it all worked out.

Okay. Let's get down to brass tacks here. Here's what its going to take for me to not hate your ass:

1. If I can get to Target tomorrow and pick up a widescreen copy of Burn After Reading.
2. When I come back from Target one of my shithead neighbors doesn't grab the spot I spend so much time shoveling and getting sweaty and smelly over.
   
3. When 5PM rolls around and I have to move not only mine, but my wife's car I can do so with little to no difficulty.

I know you have no knowledge or control over any of this but its a rant that to the best of my knowledge only one other person may or may not read in the not too distant future. It also serves as an outlet so I don't hand the poor person or persons who answer the phone when I call your 411 line repeatedly on Monday morning as I don't expect the demands I've made to be met.

But I'm warning you--don't fuck this up...