We’re still digging out in Boston after 100 inches of snow, and it’s not always pretty.

The paths are, well, impassable (here’s my dog in a maze-like tunnel that a neighbor carved out to the street). . . 

. . . and the snow has turned to ice.  Two-way streets have become (at most) one-lane, cars have remained under snow since the blizzard first hit on January 29th, and there’s nowhere to park.

Tempers are increasingly short.  So I’ve coined a new term:  “snow’d rage,” which is what happens when your road rage is snow-related.

Perhaps the worst snow’d rage happens when you’ve been circling for an hour through the streets of Boston looking for a parking spot and you find only piles of snow-covered cars that haven’t moved since the start of the blizzard:

Or when you find a perfectly good, shoveled out spot that has a space-saver in the middle of it.

What is a “space-saver”? I hear you ask.

A space-saver is something that I’ve only seen in Boston.  You use it to “claim” a parking spot that you’ve shoveled out on the street so that no one else can park there.

A “space-saver” takes many forms:  it can be a lawn chair, step stool, box of Pampers, plank of wood, ironing board, vacuum cleaner, carpet, laundry basket, open umbrella, a recycling bin or a garbage can.  Anything and everything that says: “This spot is mine because I dug it out, and if you dare even think about parking in it, your tires will be slashed before you can say “space saver.”

Here are some space-savers.  The more typical:

A casual grouping of lawn chairs:

Traffic cones:

And the more unusual:

A mannequin:

A box of diapers and cat litter:

And my favorite, a large Pooh:

And then, of course, there are those who took revenge on the spot-stealers:

The former mayor, Thomas Menino, tried to restore some semblance of order by allowing people to reserve their parking spaces for 48 hours after the start of the blizzard, but after that, he’d have the garbage trucks ply the streets, throwing all the space-savers into the truck.

That hasn’t happened with this blizzard. Space savers have been out since it started.

The new mayor, Marty Walsh, ordered the garbage trucks to be out in force starting yesterday, collecting all the space-savers.  But until then, watch out.  Move them at your peril. And, as we’ve heard, people are simply moving in new space-savers.  Plus, there’s more snow on the way.