"I can't complain, but sometimes I still do"- Joe Walsh, "Life's Been Good"

Today's rant is about Snow. (And no, not about the reggae-style rapper, the weather variety)

As many around the country know, there was a nice sized snowstorm of late. Snow everywhere. Which, in the winter, is well... kind of expected, dontcha think?

What I hate about snow is people. People who don't know how to drive. People who don't think about those who can't drive- but have to walk instead... and are forced to trudge through the snow that homeowners don't see fit to shovel.

I was born and raised in the Midwest, so snow is pretty much the way of things. You shovel it, you grab a sweater, you move on with your life. The first thing you purchase with a new car is a brush and a scraper... even if your car is bought in the summer months. Because you KNOW IT'S COMING. There will be a time when you go outside to a virtual winter wonderland where your vehicle... no matter what the factory-issued color may have been, will match the sparkly white you see displayed all around you.

I'm also accustomed to ice storms. Those lovely bits of nature that force you to practice ice sculpture techniques to merely ENTER your car, much less get it started with any success.

When I learned to drive, my father took me out in a boat of a car to an empty parking lot and instructed me to hit the brakes quickly with a bark, sending me, naturally, realling out of control. We did this until I was able to avoid doughnuts or skidding at all... then went home, switched for the other family car (a stick shift) and went through the whole process again.

So as you may imagine, I tend to be less than patient with people who have no clue how to handle that strange white flaky substance that falls unbidden from the sky.

I now live in Maryland, which though it's not far past the Mason-Dixon line... it's still past it. There must be something about that particular point of geography that obliterates the ability to handle snow. No one here is equipped for it. I expected to go outside and see people sacrificing goats in the street to appease the god they had offended. For HE had sent this blight upon us!

The first warning sign I had was earlier in the year. There was a dusting of snow... maybe an inch's worth... on the ground. This was the amount of snow we got in Ohio when my father first got his snowblower. He was upset... he had wanted to try out his new toy.

He did anyway, and we all went outside to laugh profusely at him as he snowblowed a covering that could as easily have been swept away with a broom.

But here in MD, with that same amount of snow, we went to a local buffet... (didn't feel like cooking) and discovered that it had been "closed due to the weather".

There must be something substandard about car tires here that makes it impossible to drive in cold stuff. I have no idea.

So anyway. We fast-forward to this storm. Which they are now referring to as "The Blizzard of '03". I say this in quotes, because I simply cannot type that with any honorable sense... I'd feel guilty of being misleading.

(Besides which, I can't even SAY it with a straight face)

I suppose, relatively speaking, it was a "blizzard". In the sense that it is more snow that people here perhaps are used to, yes. Just as two inches of snow in Florida might be called a whiteout, or a 10 foot wave off of Lake Michigan might be considered a Tsunami.

I don't even know where to BEGIN about the reactions of people here. First and foremost, there was a state of emergency called on one day. Now, back home, my sister and I would have been sitting at the window doing our version of ancient Indian snow dances, in hopes that it might snow MORE and we'd get out of school... but I digress.

• There were salt trucks and snow plows. Both helpful items in snow, to be sure... but the order in which they drive is rather specific. The salt truck would drive BEFORE the plow, which would follow right behind.
  
  I understand the concept of how this is supposed to work, I think. The salt is supposed to loosen the snow and ice so the plow can pick more up. And yes, this theory does indeed work... but generally only if the plow is a little further back. Like oh.... six hours behind it.
  
  
• There are not enough snow plows here. To the point that most businesses relied on construction companies... which brought out their little caterpillar tractors to do the job instead.
  
  
• The plows that ARE around haven't the first clue how to shovel anything. Arthur was so crammed in by the plow's handiwork it took him two days to shovel his way out (and he's a Rhode Island boy- he knows snow)
  
  
• People bought every snow shovel in the city. We know, we went looking for one. The problem here is that there isn't one clue to show you what everyone who bought these shovels was planning to DO with them, because to date... with the snow now melting... no walks here have been shoveled.
  
  
• No one knows how to drive. (I bet you figured that would be my first gripe?- Well I don't have a car, so it's low on my list of annoyances. And frankly it was fun to watch idiots smack into snowbanks, as long as they were far away from our vehicle)
  
  
• No one knows how to walk on ice, or shovel snow. (I've seen countless broken shovels still stuck where they broke em off)

Bloody weather.