Weather or Not

Weather or Not
Remember the good old days, when everyone talked about the weather but no one tried to do anything about it? The sun shone. The clouds gathered. Sometimes it rained. Sometimes it didn’t. People went about their errands without feeling a need to check the NOAA website or have breathless announcements about the five day forecast every fifteen minutes on the 8’s.

MoCoLoco (Montgomery County, Maryland to all non locals), has been insane about what comes from the sky ever since I moved here. I remember the first year, we had a five day blizzard resulting in schools being closed down for over a week. The rest of that winter, the mere prediction of a flake falling was sufficient to close the county.

I thought they were nuts.

Even a Texan could drive in less than an inch of snow. Buses and hills were the given explanation, but that also didn’t make sense, as the instant a cry went out predicting snow, there was a massive stampede to the grocery store to collect bread, milk and toilet paper. The shelves would look ransacked as people lined up with carts bulging with multiple gallons of moo juice, enough bread to feed the 5000 and 20 roll 2 ply Scott packs. I considered asking why these were the only items considered vital in a blizzard, but deemed it ultimately unwise.

Two years later, in the spring, school was cancelled on account of heat. Mind you, the schools had air conditioning and running water and thus were able to provide sufficient shelter from the extreme weather conditions. The temperature was a sweltering 96 degrees but still, there was no further explanation of the county wide day off. All I could think was the Superintendent got up, heard the fishing was good and thought, “Sick day.”

So stricken are Marylanders by the announcing of inclement weather, that one local wags on the radio has taken to shouting, “ABANDON YOUR CARS NOW!” when the forecast includes a chance of snow.

With the advent of the 24/7 news cycle on the tv/radio and internet, every change in temperature that is outside the standard deviation, be it for wind, moisture, heat or cold, cloud cover or time of day is charted and measured and compared to the norm. If it’s a slow day, there are even interviews of local climatologists when things are too hot or cold, and tips on how to endure the heat or the ice. People stand out in the snow to show us that it is in fact snowing. People stand out in hurricanes to show us it is wet and windy.

Then, to make sure we’re extra prepared, they also remind us to go out and stock up on essentials like milk, bread and toilet paper.

I bring all this up because this week, we had two snow days. They were unplanned and unanticipated. The whole neighborhood was covered in snow and ice, making driving extremely dangerous. I called my husband at work. “I can’t get out to the store.”

“What do you need?”

“Milk...bread…and…”