My son Nick is eight, and this winter he fell completely in love with building snowmen. Every afternoon, no matter how cold it was, he’d rush outside, rolling snow into neat circles and giving each snowman a personality. He named them, dressed them with scarves, and lined them up proudly near the edge of our lawn. It wasn’t random. That spot was clearly still our property, even if it sat close to the driveway. To Nick, those snowmen weren’t just piles of snow. They were his work, his joy, and his winter tradition.
Almost every morning, though, the same thing happened. Tire tracks cut through the lawn. Snowmen flattened. Faces destroyed. Our neighbor, Mr. Streeter, kept driving over them while pulling into his driveway. I spoke to him twice, calmly and politely. He brushed it off every time, saying it was dark, that it was “just snow,” that it didn’t matter. Nick tried not to cry, but I could see how much it hurt him. He wasn’t angry. He was disappointed. And that somehow made it worse.
One night, after another snowman was crushed, Nick surprised me. Instead of asking me to talk to Mr. Streeter again, he said he had a plan. He wasn’t smug or sneaky. He was calm. Confident. That should’ve worried me more than any tantrum. I asked what kind of plan an eight-year-old could possibly have. He just smiled and said it was a secret. I told myself it was harmless. Kids say things like that all the time. I had no idea what was coming.
The next evening, just as Mr. Streeter’s car pulled in, I heard a loud crack outside. Not a crash. Not a scream. A sharp, unmistakable metallic sound. Then shouting. I ran to the window. There, beside the driveway, lay the remains of another snowman. But this one was different. Hidden inside its base, carefully packed and completely invisible, Nick had frozen a bucket of water around a thick wooden post. When the car rolled over it, the tire didn’t flatten snow. It slammed into solid ice and wood.