Today in Kentucky we’re inundated with snow, and not
really snow, but ice that fell on top of it making it slick and dangerous. Kentuckians get irate when you say that
but they have no idea how to behave in this weather. If one lonely snowflake wanders down from the Upper
Peninsula of Michigan and lands in Jefferson Square it sparks pandemonium. People who are already bad drivers
become worse; people flock to the stores and buy up food for months in case
they’re frozen into their homes; and oddly enough they don’t close their
schools. I direct your attention
to the diagram. I watched a great
deal of C-Span, and I believe Jon Stewart touches on this as well, but any
bullshit is made credible by a diagram or visual aid. The greater Louisville area (that mean you, too, Hoosiers)
is thrown into hysterics by many things but the greatest of these is snow.
I worked in a grocery store here for what was actually five years but felt like eons. Whenever it became cold and wet people became nervous and once it turned into snow they dropped nervous for erratic. People would dog-pile into the store grabbing milk, bread, eggs, and other things that I didn’t eat at the time.
I’m doing my damnedest to acclimate to the local culture and I was thinking about what I would buy at the store when I went. What would you buy if you were going to be frozen into your home? I was pondering these things in my heart when I received a message from Valerie about how Cindy was spearheading competitive weight-loss at my school. It made me regret not being there because if there is something dangerous it is my will to lose weight when I find it (eighty pounds in eighty days) and then there is my competitive nature. I’m pretty sure that I would be dead if I were still there because my spider-sense tells me that money is involved as well and those three things together would be hazardous to my health. Lucky for me, I am not in Phoenix. This is perhaps one of two things to be thankful for about not being with my friends and faux-family.
For the record, out of solidarity with Valerie, the first thing on my shopping list for the snowstorm/Armageddon was double-stuffed Oreos. They tried to sell me on some store brand faux Oreo cookies and they are very lucky that I don’t know how to get blood out of argyle or someone would be replacing the one I ruined. I also got potatoes, tortillas and bacon for breakfast burritos (we had eggs at home); pretzels and the ingredients for French onion dip – or Freedom onion dip as your politics permit, an abundance of Diet Coke, and some malted milk balls – also for Valerie but I gave them to my mother because she likes them as well and I’d never remember to mail them.
With the exception of framing a picture (now I know why to pay someone else to do it) and shoveling the ice-encrusted snow off the driveway I have done little today besides hate The Fountainhead eat the junk food I purchased. I feel sick from all the crap food and The Fountainhead is a disappointing book. I think the next time it snows I will briefly consider but ultimately reject stocking up on healthier fare.
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