It shouldn’t surprise anybody that the mouth behind the bag has a military background. If it weren’t for Brian and Chad reminding me often (and rather forcefully) that my language shouldn’t eclipse PG-13, lest I not get my ration of raw steak for the week, my writing would be more colorful than Carnival in Rio de Janeiro. This also means that there’s a few statements I’ve learned along the way that when actually applied in life work remarkably well. Driving past the store the day after we got hit with more snow and ice, I saw that the actions of Store Manager perfectly apply to two of my favorites.

“Lead from the front.” Let’s explain what happened here: after finally melting off eight inches of snow, and after the subsequent flooding finally started to subside, we got hit with an ice and snow storm. Up to an inch and a half of sheet ice, with eight inches of snow on top of that. Thank you, Mother Nature, you sometimes insufferable bitch. What it meant to me was two fantastic hours of cardio as I proceeded to free the vehicles from the driveway so that if the snowplow just happened to drive by, we’d be able to get out. Sure enough, the plow came and I decided to venture out to see just how nasty the streets in town were. As I slipped and slid my way through the streets I passed the store and noticed that it was bare asphalt. One of the two driveways had been cleaned out, and the entire parking lot was free of snow. Store Manager’s car was parked in the back, and one broken snow shovel was leaned up against the front door. Curious, I stopped in and learned that he had shoveled the entire thing by hand. He’d gotten into town after driving 45 minutes from his house, and from seven-something in the morning until about five-thirty that night, he’d been shoveling, stopping long enough to eat, hit the can or to just warm up. That’s not a small parcel of property to clear off, and with only a hundred or two dollars in sales, why would you? He just wanted to make sure that customers were safe and could get to the store. Now that, folks, is how it’s done. I can’t say that I’m completely approving of the methods, knowing his medical background, but his thought processes are spot-on. This isn’t just clearing off the sidewalks.

The second statement is much more concise: “Cover your ass.” Anybody and everybody completely understands this concept…if nothing else, you want to make sure that you walk away clean from whatever S-show is about to befall everybody. Again, in the case of Store Manager, explain to me why a man in his late 40s who should be focused on his store and the operations going on inside the doors is instead outside hand-shoveling a damn parking lot? Considering the conditions, you’d think that there would be some forward planning…considering that there’s one Bobcat loader for every five people in the local area and near as many plow trucks, how hard would it have been for a Regional manager to sort out some kind of fund to pay for the services?