News-Record.com

The timing is a bit fuzzy at this point, but it was one of those pre-Christmas December days a few years back when you feel the approaching holiday as though Santa's very sack were upon your back. It was cold, overcast, a forecast of snow on the airwaves, the bustle of the holiday.

My wife had been to Learning Express a day prior and saw the store putting out those pretty saucer sleds. The clerks there were even hand-lettering kids' names on them. I was dispatched to come home with said sled.

I was a bit dubious about the name-lettering part; our daughter's name has nine letters, and the dang thing wasn't but maybe two feet wide. But the clerk lettered a nice yellow one -- twice actually, having misspelled the first one. So I brought it home and waited for the snow to blow.

And waited.

And waited.

You get the point; if you have kids at home, their sleds too probably have accumulated more crust and corrosion from leaning up against fertilizer bags than street salts. At first, everytime the forecast called for snow, out I would traipse to the shed to recall the sled and snow shovel. I settled them on the front porch, well covered from the weather but handy for immediate use.

Inevitably, the precipitation failed to solidify or even materialize.

This past weekend, both sled and shovel remained quartered in the shed, perhaps daring the cursed clouds to catch them asnooze. Alas, the sled's slumber went undisturbed.

So here we sit again on the precipice of precipitous ice. But I will not go home, clomp to the shed, shove aside the chain saw and tarp and paint buckets and saw horses to pull out that sled. No, the sled in the shed is firmly abed.

Until later this summer. I think we'll take it to the lake and tow it behind a boat.