"WINTER"
(a perennial favorite rant of blogs and email forwarders, slightly edited. source uncertain, possibly michelle catalano.)
You would think people had never seen snow before - the way they react when there's a storm coming in. It's a weird phenomenon that strikes whenever more than three inches of snow is predicted. People start acting as if they had lived in pure sunshine and heat the whole time. OH NO! White stuff falling from the sky! We're all gonna DIE! Please. You all drive Lincoln Navigators and Hummers with twelve-wheel drive. The town will clear the roads within a day and your kids will be throwing snowballs at the neighbor kids within an hour.
I don't know what everyone gets so uptight about. And I certainly don't know why they all feel the need to run to the grocery store as soon as some yahoo on tv says the word “snow”. It's just a gut reaction, I guess. OH NO!! IT'S GOING TO SNOW!! Gather the children!! Man your posts!! DEFCON ONE!!!! And, like a sea of panicky lemmings, they drive en masse to their local delis and supermarkets and Dairy Barns, stocking up on milk and bread. Yes, milk and bread. It's an interesting phenomenon that's been around for as long as I can remember. There must be some forgotten urban legend that wove its way around decades ago. A suburban family wakes one morning to find that it has snowed. The mom goes into the kitchen only to find that there is only a half quart of milk and two slices of bread left! The horror!... And oh, irony of ironies, the deli just two blocks away has one gallon of fresh, whole milk left and one loaf of white bread on the shelf. If only there were some way to get two blocks away with having to trudge through the monster snow storm that dumped two inches of the white stuff all over town!
Not only that, snowstorms are like crack to the media. Why is it earth shattering news that it's freezing outside? Is this something new? Are you touting some kind of bizarro-world global-un-warming theory? Seriously, give up on that idiotic "Storm of the Century"tm meme. Since the life expectancy in this land is about 75 years and rising, the odds are pretty good that we'll see at least one of the real things, and you lose every last shred of credibility when you blurt out "Storm of the Century"tm every time the drifts get up to your ankles.
IT'S WINTER. Say it with me. WIN-TER. You know, that time of year when temperatures plummet and white stuff falls from the sky and your car battery dies and the homeless are rounded up and thrown into shelters and the snot running out of some kid's nose freezes to his face.
So I don't understand why you think it necessary to lead every news hour with the revelation that it is COLD and possibly SNOWING outside. As if this were some strange, new feeling for us. As if we never saw ice on our windshields or snow on the ground. You grab your camera crew and stand outside schools and offices and Home Depots and marvel at the people wearing hats and scarves and mittens because "This has never happened before! We wear bikinis and speedos all year long!! Is this really breaking news? Do you realize that for the last ten winters in row, maybe more, you have started your nightly newscasts with stories about how to keep warm? Does this seem just a bit unnecessary to you? Granted, it's not like we are living in northern Siberia, but we are kind of used to 15-degree days. It happens. It's WINTER. We really don't need some "expert" staring at us from the tv telling us to wear layers and eat a good breakfast and warm our cars up. Seriously, I hope Jack Frost freezes your mouths shut this year.
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