I watched him struggle with the sea

[sovay]

I was nine-tenths of the way through shoveling my mother's driveway before it occurred to me that the flat-bladed gardening implement which I had been using to rowel up the frozen underlayer of slush from which the shovel just skidded off—it reminded me of a whaler's cutting spade—was conceivably some kind of hoe. I cannot tell if this means I will never have to settle my debts with Poseidon or if I have just incurred Demeter's eternal disappointment.

Comments

[sovay]

Rule of thumb: if the flat blade is parallel with the handle, it's an ice-chopper. If the flat blade is at 90 degrees to the handle, it's a hoe.

The blade is set flat into the handle, which is one of the reasons it did not originally occur to me as a hoe, but then it didn't look like any other kind of tool-on-a-pole because of the shape of the blade—it looks exactly like the curve-topped kind of antique hoe blade, just without the angle. It was semi-inherited from a neighbor who left his entire collection of gardening implements in my parents' yard. It has a wooden handle and a lot of rust; it isn't young. Regardless, it was exactly what I needed to make like an icebreaker so that the driveway didn't turn into a rink under the snow.

I feel like the various gods must have some kind of way to pass out-of-season homage and debts back and forth, the way libraries trade copying and copyright fees. So you should be fine no matter which kind of tool it is.

That is reassuring, thank you.