Day 201: It Might Snow, Let the Southern Panic Begin!

I am frustrated about the weather. Being a Yankee, snow and ice is par for the course so it does not faze me when we get an inch or two here in easily panicked North Carolina. I discovered the apparent terror of snow last year shortly after I moved here, but it was a fairly mild winter so there were not a lot of opportunities to laugh and point. This year, however, has gotten off to a quick start. Today was the first day of the alleged snow storm season. I phrase it like this because there is an apparent trend in town that calls for snow, people panic and snow does not appear. Today was no different. Schools were let out early, workers were sent home early, grocery stores experienced frenzied shoppers lunging for bread, eggs and milk as if they were prepping for some sort of french toast-off .

It is now one in the morning and the snow never materialized in town and looking at the current weather forecast, it doesn’t look like it’s going to. I understand that if you aren’t used to driving on snowy roads, it might be a bit daunting, but you’re not driving around on glass, those are rubber tires with tread. Ice is always a problem, but a little bit of snow is going to be fine. Schools and workplaces were let out early. For what? So people could hit the grocery then rush home and glue themselves to the TV for every updated weather report? The weather reports, by the way, are frequent. In a 30 minute newscast I counted no less than 13 segments on the weather or references to it. And it was only raining. Yes, the outlying areas got some snow, but give it a rest already. It wasn’t a blizzard and the airport and city area didn’t get a damn thing.

In less than 10 hours I will hopefully be on a plane heading to areas where snow is commonplace at this time of the year. I am not looking forward to the snow, but at least there no one talks about it like it’s the apocalypse. Don’t even get me started on the fog we had earlier in the week. You’d have thought Don DeLilo’s toxic cloud had descended up the Queen City. Oh yeah, that’s what they call Charlotte, I haven’t gotten around to researching why yet, but as soon as the great fog and nonexistent snow panic of 2009 pass, I’m going to jump on that next. I just hope someone saved me some french toast, I’m starving.