News Flash

Just in case your next stop after reading Lileks is the Cake Eater, although I don't know why it would be, I feel obliged to let you know, that, no, it hasn't started snowing yet.

But, we're not out of the woods, yet. And it looks like it's actually going to snow well into Wednesday... Or so the local weather guy keeps assuring me, in a breathless, oh-pleasepleaseplease-let-it-be-true, pants chock-a-block full of ants sort of way.

This is my ninth Minnesota winter. I still have yet to understand why people up here get as excited as they do when it comes to the first snowfall. Whoop-de-doo. It snows here in the winter. {Insert Gomer Pyle Voice Here} Surprise, Surprise, Surprise! {/Gomer voice} We live in the northernmost state in the contiguous forty-eight; we're just south of Canada: it's going to snow, sometime, during the winter. It's a given. Yet people---the weather people in particular---get all breathy and hysterical about it, like virgins on prom night. Their eyes shine with an unholy glee that suggests ice fishing is just around the corner and they can't freakin' wait to drive their ten-ton pickup truck across a frozen lake to their ice fishing hut so they can saw open a hole in the lake and sit there with a twelve pack of Bud, and a line in the frozen water. (Yes. You're remembering Grumpy Old Men aren't you? Yes, people actually do that up here. They didn't just make that up.) They think of the joys of outdoor ice rinks and cross country skiing and snowshoeing and snowmobiling and all of that winter-related crap---and yet none of these winter pasttimes can happen unless the snow starts falling.

So, if you believe the hype, you'd think the State of Minnesota would be full of people who love winter. And yet....and yet, even here in the Great White Hinterlands people still forget how to freakin' drive in the fluffy white stuff. I know. You'd think it would be the opposite. That we'd have a population of nothing but battle-hardened, wise drivers who could handle driving in snow and ice. But no. People here are like people from anywhere else: they will forget how to drive today---and it will be because there will be snowflakes falling from the skies. Some people will forget how to brake today, while others will forget how to press the gas pedal. Some will swerve and will wind up in the ditch. Some will not swerve and will wind up in the back of the car in front of them. Some will make it home safely; some will have to have their cars home. All will bitch about everyone else's inability to drive in bad weather.

It's amazing in this day and age that people could forget that they have anti-lock brakes, but they do. They also forget that they have nice tires that grip the road in all weather conditions. They forget not to ride on the brake and that if your car starts to swing one way, you slowly turn the steering wheel opposite. But mostly they'll forget that it's been warm this autumn---the ground hasn't frozen yet, so it's not like ice will be forming on streets where there's plenty of traffic, eh? It's just wet, kids, not slippery. It's not that hard, people, to remember this stuff. Really, it's not. Save everyone the traffic jam tonight, please. I don't want to have to listen to a thousand horns honking outside of my nice, warm apartment this evening.