It’s mid February. We have 3 feet of snow. Everyone is having ice and snow on the roof problems. School was cancelled yesterday in our 4 neighbouring counties. It’s winter.

We have this really awful ice dam across the entire back of our house with water leaking in several rooms. We don’t know why yet, except the back of our house doesn’t have much of a slope, doesn’t get any winter sun, and we’ve had repeated rain and snow storms since the beginning of January.

So I read yesterday about these salt based pucks that you throw up on your roof. They were called “Roofmelt”. They are safe for your asphalt shingles and will slowly melt through your ice dam, making channels for the water to drain off your roof.

Woo hoo! Just want we need!

So I checked on the website and Canadian Tire had them listed. I checked our local store inventory online, and bingo! they were in stock.

So Jeff and I went to Canadian Tire to buy a pail or two last night.

Skip ahead 10 minutes and Jeff has to drag me out of the store because I’m starting to make a scene.

OK so I’m a little on edge, our house is leaking, I’m worried about our roof, I had a bad day at work, Bell’s network was down in the province so I had no signal on my iPhone, and I was hungry…

But I was almost pushed to new extremes when I went to Canadian Tire and found rows upon rows of grass seed, slug bait, mosquito repellant, and flower pots.

Not even one snow shovel. It is THE MIDDLE OF WINTER YOU JACKASSES!

So Jeff asked a young employee if he could show us where the Roofmelt was.

“Uhhhh…. I don’t think we have any… “, but he went to check the inventory computer anyway.

“No, I’m not seeing anything.”

And that is when I said, “Well I’m glad I spent the time this afternoon looking up your inventory online to verify that you had some first in stock before we made the trip.”

Then I started in on a rant about their summer inventory. Not to the young stock boy, just to the crowd, that didn’t exist. No one was around. But before I could step all the way onto my soapbox, Jeff dragged me out of the store laughing at my exasperation.

IF YOU CAN’T BUY ROOFMELT DURING THE ONLY MONTH OF THE YEAR YOU WOULD ACTUALLY NEED IT, WHY IS IT ON YOUR WEBSITE??????

So we went to Central. (our little rural town Home Depot knock-off). No roof pucks. But they did have a few bags of salt and sand still by the door. They had never heard of the product. Their project planning desk staff might be able to order us some though.

Next stop. Walmart. Walmart’s manager must live in Florida. Rows upon rows of patio furniture and bug zappers. WHO CAN EVEN SEE THEIR PATIO YOU JACKASSES! It’s FEBRUARY!! In the discount section between the cashiers and the exit there were a couple shovels and some mis-matched selection of salt products. No Roofmelt.

Atlantic Superstore. A couple bags of salt left. No shovels. Winter isle has been replaced with Easter merchandise.

If I bust my snow shovel, or the scraper for my car windows, will I be forced to hibernate until the next winter? Should I come back in the summer and pick up a couple spares???

I stopped by Home Hardware today. They had Roofmelt on their website too. Although their staff in the store today had never heard of it. After I described it, one employee thought it would be a great idea. I said that I guess I’ll have to order it well in advance since every store is full of lawn and garden supplies now. He said, hey! great idea, and you should buy extra and sell it. The other said, just use rock salt, that’s what we use. I said I heard that is a baaaaaad thing to put on your roof. The other guy said he’d never put rock salt on his roof.

Sigh.

Oh and did I mention that Jeff called every roofing company in the area? Only one guy will remove snow and ice from your roof, but he doesn’t have insurance.

We’ll pass, thanks.