Thursday, March 06, 2008

Winter Wonderland (Yeah, Right)

So this is what our local weatherman is saying:

It's gonna rain Friday morning. It's gonna snow Friday night. It's gonna snow Saturday morning. So what? you may be saying. No big deal. Oh, maybe not where YOU live, but here......oh here, baby puppy, is a different story indeed.

See, it doesn't snow here very often. And when it does,it's never over a couple of inches. That means it snows 3 inches every ten years. And since this is Alabama, deep southern United States, we are not equipped to deal with it. Equipped? you may be asking. How equipped do you have to be for 3 inches of snow? Once again, you must remember that this is Alabama. This is what happens when they forecast snow for this area.

1. The grocery stores are overrun with panicked customers, buying all the milk and bread they can get their hands on. (Why do people buy milk and bread in preparation for a "snow event"? I have never been able to figure that out.).

2. The hardware stores are overrun with panicked customers, buying all the flashlights, kerosene heaters, generators, candles and whatnot associated with cold weather.

3. Wal-Mart is overrun with panicked customers, buying all the hats, gloves and blankets they can grab.

4. They break out the snow plows and the salt trucks. All 2 of them, so that the panicked drivers who may happen to see one snowflake don't run off of the road.

5. The school board sets up an overnight vigil to determine whether or not schools will be open for the next day. No one wants these panicked parents to have their children caught out in "the weather".

Seeing a theme here? Perhaps "panic"? This is Alabama. This is what we do.

Doesn't matter that they have forecasted a "snow event" several times in the past 6 months and it has come to naught. Doesn't matter.

Doesn't matter that it only snows a couple of inches every 10 years. Doesn't matter.

Doesn't matter that any child in this area from the ages of newborn to 10 years old has NEVER seen a snow covered yard. Doesn't matter.

This is Alabama. This is what we do.

Why do we do this? Is it because we're inherently dumb? No, we're not. Well, most of us aren't anyway. We're desperate. Desperate for a change of pace. All we ever get here is rain, and not a whole lot of that, considering we're still in critical drought range. Rain and heat, that's us.

So, even though most of us KNOW it's not gonna snow and we know that all these preparations are in vain, it gives us something different to do. We've been around out weathermen long enough to know that they don't know what they're talking about anyway. We're not THAT dumb.

By this point you may be asking "So, Sprinkle, are you going to be part of the panicked crowds rampaging through those stores?" Well, of course not. I did that 5 years ago and I still have the unnecessary stuff I bought in a storage room. What I am going to do is this: I am going around the corner to the Dollar Store, buy some cheap generic hot chocolate for the kids and a couple of cans of soup for myself. Why am I doing this when I know that it's not really going to snow?

Because you never really know do ya?:)

Peace alllllllll...................

2 comments:

Lizard said...

wow!! it sounds great as we didn't have the opportunity to experience snow before!!

Enjoy and be blessed sis=)

Granny Annie said...

I worked with a woman who was thrown into a panic by any weather forecast of possible incliment weather. Her office did not have windows so whe was constantly running to our offices to look out the windows and wring her hands in dread of impending doom. I'm talking rain, snow, drizzle, fog, frost or slight mist. What she couldn't see outside our windows, she would call her family members to see if they were experiencing foul weather. She kept a hotline open to the free 24 hour telephone weather update recording. Since Oklahoma has recently had some pretty serious flooding and ice storms I have wondered about this gal and would not be surprised to hear she has died of fright.