What is it
about the weather that brings out the crazy in everyone? (And yes, I am one of
those crazies). Let’s face it, weather
is one of those things that is a topic of everyday conversation: “Oh I hope it
doesn’t rain on Saturday and ruin my barbecue,” or “Do you think it’s going to
be humid? I don’t want my hair to frizz,” (that’s me) or “If it’s too cold out,
I’m going to cancel my plans and stay inside.” We are continually speculating
on the weather and how it’s going to disrupt our lives. I get it. But what is
it about a potentially big weather event that makes mass pandemonium erupt?
I carefully
observed the behavior of everyone around me with the latest storm of this past
week. People were talking about it for days ahead of time… is the storm going
to come? Is it going to be as bad as the weathermen predict? Is the storm going
to miss us altogether? I even had a friend text me from Minnesota saying “Sounds like you are gonna get a ton of
snow this week!” Really? Thank you for that newsflash. (Or perhaps he
was gloating since it is currently warmer in Minneapolis than NYC.) Something
about the weather just brings out the OCD in all of us. And it’s not like we
can ever really tell what’s going on.
The weathermen are like these mysterious creatures—I suspect they're actually aliens—who
wave their magic wands over their green screens and tell us what’s happening. I
think they use their wands to hypnotize us into believing their mumbo jumbo. There
are times I wonder if the weather people use a Magic 8 Ball to forecast the
weather. Can’t you imagine them sitting there asking the Magic 8 Ball, “Are we
going to have two feet of snow?” And then they shake the Magic 8 Ball and the
answer comes back, “Reply hazy, try again.” Yup, that sounds about right.
Sounds like most of their weather predictions, truth be told.
Besides the
weather speculating, is the planning for the storm. My Jewish mother kept
calling me every day and asking me to park my car in her garage so it doesn’t
get buried in snow until April. (I respectfully declined her invitation.) Or what about everyone raiding the grocery stores
buying out everything on the shelves?
In the days leading up to the storm, stores were reporting being out of meat
and all kinds of basic supplies. Come on, everyone! We are preparing for a one-day
storm not the apocalypse! And
especially for those of us that live in a city, it’s even easier. We really
only need enough food for ONE day. There was no reason to think things wouldn’t
be business as usual by the next day.
I ventured
out the day after the storm to walk dogs and I was pleasantly surprised to see
a lot of the sidewalks were shoveled and the roads were plowed. That is not
always the case in my little Queens neighborhood. All the stores were open and
the sun was actually shining. I witnessed many people trying to shovel out
their cars. Most were struggling because as impatient New Yorkers, we assume
that if we shovel a couple of times in the front of our car, we should be able
to pull out. Not gonna happen. Personally, I’m in no rush to dig out. I’d
rather wait a few more days for the sun to do its melting magic and make my
digging a whole lot easier!
I miss
being a kid, when I didn’t worry about food preparation, power outages or my
car getting stuck in a foot of snow. The only thing that mattered is whether or
not I had a day off from school! SNOW DAY! I miss that. But on second thought,
the adult version of a snow day ain’t so bad either. There are no classes to
make up or homework to worry about. An adult snow day consists of sitting on
the couch, eating popcorn and binge watching your favorite TV show. And the
kicker is you get to do it with a nice glass of red wine to keep you warm. Let
it snow!
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