Heavy Snow in April

We had another crazy late snowstorm in Denver. Well, mid April isn't that crazy, but still, it was a LOT of WET and HEAVY snow. Ben was so kind by letting me borrow his car for the night. I got to work a little late because of traffic but saw that my usual street parking was available. When I pulled in I noted that it was the third Friday of April, and thus my car might be towed for street sweeping. Hmmm. There was another car parked in the zone and it had a good layer of snow on it. I circled the block and didn't find any other parking (duh, they were already taken by the people who usually park on my street but left their house earlier like a smart person would in bad weather). I pulled back in the spot. The tow time only lasted another 1 1/2 hours, and with the snow I doubted they would be sweeping. I decided to risk it.
I made it up to the floor in time. My coworkers informed me that they would probably just ticket me if they made the rounds, and the ticket is just $20. Whew, good risk.
But I got nervous as I left the hospital. Would my car still be there?

Oh very much so.

Hmmm. That sure is a lot of heavy wet snow plowed up close to my car. I tried to open the door but it was completely blocked by the snow. Here's where the blessings start. I have NEVER seen anyone when I leave the hospital (but always with pepper spray in hand just in case I do). Today on my way to my car I passed a man shoveling his walk. Why was he shoveling his walk at 4 AM? I don't know. But I ran over to him and asked if I could borrow his shovel (yes mom, pepper spray still in hand in pocket, just in case). He turned out to be a kind Chinese gentleman who shoo shooed me away and insisted that he shovel out my door for me. I profusely thanked him and got in the car. Engine on, defrost on, and located the window scraper. I attacked the windows and quickly ditched the scraper, this snow was way too heavy so it worked better to wipe it away with my arm. Once I got those cleared I started stabbing at the snow around my tires. I was skeptical this would work and predicted another favor from the Chinese man. I was right. After he had a go shoveling out my tires, with me helping by lifting out wet ice bricks from the wall, I tried again and failed. Blessing #2: a dude with a plow on his truck pulls out of the driveway on this street and sees me stabbing at the ice wall. He pulled up and offered to help dig me out. Between the shovel man and the plow man, it took 15 minutes further to dig me out. I tried to take photos casually so they wouldn't freak out, but they didn't really work:

(red blur is plow on the blue blur truck, skimming by my car)

I can't believe these two men happened to be there and were so willing to help. I wonder how long it would have taken me to get home with my stabby ice scraper technique, and how long before I would have broken down crying and called Ben to come get me. I wanted to talk to them, introduce myself and thank them more, but they just gave simple "You're welcome, no problem, be safe" replies and hurried off to their days. Isn't it amazing how kind people can be?

PS: Ben, a little dingus came off the front of the car, either when I was pushing through the snow or when they were digging around me. They found it in the snow and gave it to me, it's on the bureau by the stairs. It looks non-important and I think I can snap it back into place later. I'm sorry! Remember to wake me by noon!