I watched the snow falling from behind my laptop as I worked. I was grateful for the ability to work from home and not have to brave the treacherous roads. But in the back of my mind, I was dreading the chore that would come at the end of the day, shoveling.

The white stuff was nearing chest high on my corgi, so I knew I was going to have to shovel a path for him in the backyard. Last year when we got a bit of snow accumulation, my efforts to provide him a potty path ended with a thrown back. Given the Wife is out of town and I've got no one but the pups and the kitties to take care of me, I was a little scared of this prospect.

The snow finally let up enough and I figured I'd procrastinated enough. I went to the closet and fished out the coveralls the Wife bought me. They don't fit well. Someone (read me) needs to lose some weight. When she got them I figured just having them over my clothes unzipped would be enough until my belly shrunk some.

At first, I was pleased they went on a little better this time. I silently congratulated myself for losing a bit of weight. I was even able to get the zipper most of the way up. I grabbed my snow boots and sat down to put them on. It was only then that I realized I was in trouble. I couldn't bend over far enough to tie them.

I muttered an expletive, stood up and unzipped the coveralls. Now I was in serious trouble. Despite unzipping, I couldn't move well enough to get my arms out of the sleeves. The stiff fabric was unforgiving and I couldn't bend anything! This was worse than having thrown out my back.

I thrashed around a bit hoping to bust a seam to free myself. Sadly, Wall's apparently builds quite sturdy coveralls. I heard this high pitched girly laugh that seemed like it was coming from a long way off … but no, it was actually me. I was laughing hysterically because I'd managed to trap myself in a pair of coveralls.

I squirmed some more and tripped over an untied boot, crashing to the floor and barely missing the corgi. He hopped and barked happily thinking we were playing a game. I struggled to fend him away as he licked my face and pushed my head with his snoot. Our other dog came running over and stood over us all. I sincerely thanked them for their efforts to help.

I'm imagine I looked like one of those guys they use to train drug sniffing dogs. Sadly my “trainees” were below average students. I thought of trying to convince one of them to grab a hold of a sleeve, then realized unless I coated myself in peanut butter that wouldn't happen. I was in a sticky enough situation anyway.

I rolled over and managed to stand up again. At this point, I was sweating profusely. I tried one more time to pull my shoulder and hand back inside the sleeve. I got part way in! I wriggled some more and inch, by painful inch I managed to work my left arm in side so I could slip it out.

Finally free of the top half, I then began work on freeing myself from the bottom half. Ten minutes later, bathed in sweat and dog hair, I was finally free of my duck fabric prison. I dimly wondered how I was going to have the energy to shovel.

I grabbed another coat, put my boots back on and headed out to shovel the potty path. I shoveled a nice area on the back porch and then even went so far as to shovel an area in front of the porch so himself could get out in the yard. I looked back through the French doors to see jumping and barking puppies who wanted to come outside.

I let them out and made a sweeping gesture with my hand at the area I cleared for them. They ignored me and set out on their own path into the yard. The corgi dug his own potty path.