Snow! Snow! It’s going to snow! Every year, it’s the same old snow panic. After a while, it gets tiresome.

Oh, the weather people are so happy! They are beating the weather drums and doing the weather dance, trying their level best to work everyone up into a snow
panic.

It doesn’t take much. People in the South are just about as afraid of snow as they are of a nuclear disaster.

I guess it’s the weather person’s duty to warn the public — not that it does any good. People have no sense. They don’t know how to drive in the snow, but won’t stay out of the way of those that do.

I write one of these silly weather stories every year. It never fails that the S-word causes a major commotion at least once or twice a winter. Lord, what would Southerners do if they had snow all the time?

Get used to it?

Ain’t gonna happen, so no use speculating on it.

Bread, milk, and toilet paper – these are the essentials for snow. I imagine these items are jumping off shelves into grocery baskets all over town right now. Shelves will be picked clean.

Why? It isn’t as if this is Alaska and we won’t be able to get out for the rest of the winter. Geez, we don’t even shovel the driveway when it snows. Why bother? It will all melt tomorrow or the next day anyhow.

Snow in the South is a rarity, but it does happen. It was snowing in Atlanta earlier one year when we were traveling though. I met one woman who had driven all
the way from Orlando to see snow. Now, why in the world would someone drive hundreds of miles in bad weather to see snow? It was melting as fast as it fell.

I have to admit that there is a beauty to it all when everything is covered with a white blanket and none of the gray drab of winter can be seen. But snow in the
country, and even the suburbs, is a different issue from snow in the city. No one wants to become a part of the circus on the highway called “learning to drive
in the snow.”

So far, so good, the day is over and no snow yet, in spite of the weather witches chant. I guess their job gets boring. Sunny today, rain tomorrow. Rain today,
sunny tomorrow. Like a foxtrot. At least snow is a different tune to dance to.

Ears perk up when people hear the S-word. They are itching for a good reason to lay off work anyhow. And, when it snows in Texas, they close the schools in Tennessee in anticipation, another good reason to stay home when the kids are out.

Will it? Won’t it? Let me check the forecast again. First they said snow flurries, then
a few inches. Now they have put it off until tonight. If it’s yet another false alarm, people are going to be very disappointed.

Weather folks don’t make the weather, they will say, they just try to predict it.

So, if it finally snows overnight, there may be a bluish inch of the stuff. Hopefully it will be a weekend and people can stay at home with their bread, milk, and toilet paper.

But they won’t. Now they will have to think of another excuse to get out in it. They were promised a disaster, and, by golly, they want to be sure they get one!

Copyright 2008 Sheila Moss