Mother Nature has decided that the sub-zero temperatures have not been enough to remind us that it’s winter. No, she feels that we need a little more reminding. So, according to the National Weather Service, by this time tomorrow night we should have 1 to 2 feet of snow. How lovely.
Actually, I do love winter. The world is so breaktakingly beautiful after a snowfall. The plows and DPW trucks throwing sand and salt all over the place. The rusted out cars in their neat, piled up accidents. The kids running in terror from the school bus sliding out of control down the road. The business women in skirts up to their cooley in a snowbank. The businessmen in their big trucks running over the businessmen in their little Yugos. There’s nothing like a good ol’ fashioned Central New York winter.
Settle down, I’m kidding. People don’t drive Yugos anymore.
For an area of the world that tends to get a lot of snow there seems to be a persistent mayhem whenever a storm is in the forecast. Like it’s never happened before. People flock to the grocery store and buy milk and bread. Even the people on Atkins buy bread. They don’t eat it, but they’re suppose to get bread, so they get bread. Maybe they pass the “snowed in” time fantasizing about eating bread. Or reminiscing when they could eat bread. And I don’t even want to think about fantasies and milking. When I was growing up, there was a weird family down the street and they never had to buy milk. They had a cow in their house. I’m not kidding… my dad and I were driving to work on a sunny day, minding our own business and lo and behold, there was a cow sticking his head out the bedroom window on the second floor of the neighbor’s house. Maybe it was a horse, now that I think about it. While I’m pretty certain it wasn’t the wife, it was an animal of some sort. But really, what could I expect in my neighborhood. The neighbor on the other side was named “Frida Look”. No joke! Frida Look. And down the street, Frida Kahl. If you’re not keeping up, Free—da—look—– free-to-look… ah! Now you got it!
Back to the snow storm. Working for a radio station, I get to see the hysterics first hand. School administrators calling in… “Yes, Mr. Bookworm, I know, all afternoon and evening activities have been cancelled for today. Do you know the code word?” I have to admit it… I know the code word! It’s been the same damn code word since Marconi invented the radio. You’d think someone would have wised up by now. You’d also think the school administrators would know the code word. They’ve been at the school so long they built the new high school around them. But no, they don’t and they have to flip their pages of notes to find the code word. Meanwhile, Dance on Cloud 9 Studio in Barneveld (who dances in Barneveld?) is desperately trying get through on line 2 to let us know that the Fully Phat Gymnastics Team has cancelled snack break again due to the weather. Never mind that the Fully Phat Gymnastics Team has never seen the light of day, nor that the radio station doesn’t even reach Barneveld, but gosh darn it Dance on Cloud Nine Studio is cancelling classes again! Announce it! For some reason, they’re exempt from the code word. I don’t know why.
I guess I just don’t understand the reasons for the hysterics when it comes to snow storms in this neck of the woods. We’re known for snow. This is what we do. It’s going to melt. Spring will spring. The world isn’t going to stop. We have plows. We have snow blowers.
So relax people. Enjoy the snow. Make a snow angel.
