Polar Vortex, My Ass

{From Bekah}

So, despite the fact that it was sunny and 60 today, it's supposed to snow here in the South tomorrow. And I'm excited, because I haven't seen the good white fluffy stuff since I left the Midwest. 

But there's just one not-so-fun fact about Georgia that concerns me: When it rains, it pours… imbeciles. So I can't even imagine the hell I will experience when the dusting blows through.

On the sunniest of days, you see not a single turning signal. And if you spot one (in use, nonetheless), then you know it’s obviously a manufacturing flaw on the part of the automaker, because there’s no way Bubba there flipped that switch intentionally. But throw two drops of rain into the mix and shabam! Hazard lights galore. Feet stomp on brakes. Cars grovel and lollygag forward. Drivers sail into ditches, medians, concrete dividers, and other motorists. And I’d say don’t even get me started on snow storms, but WHAT FREAKING SNOWSTORMS? They don’t exist down here, people. Know how I know this? BECAUSE IT’S THE SOUTH. Yes, you may get a few inches of snow now and then, but snowflakes are harmless unless they travel in torrential packs, and they just don’t do that down here. Snow down here is more like a ladies-who-lunch affair.

But you just can’t tell poor Bubba this. I know, because Chris tried telling Bubba this, and he met with the sort of indignant resistance French people display when they try convincing we Americans that they actually saved the planet from Hitler (#Merica!).

“Yeah, you Yankees might get snow. I’m not denying that,” Chris’s boss began. “But you aren’t the only ones who suffer in the winter. We get our share of snowy hell.”

“I’d like to say I believe you,” Chris said, “but I don’t. It’s hard to take you all seriously when you shut down school for an entire week over a total snowfall of five inches over six days.”

“First off, it’s ‘y’all,’ Chris, not ‘you all.’ You just sound igneerent when you say it like that,” his boss continued. “Second off, we might not get the snow you guys get, but we have something worse. We have this thing called ice. Like, sometimes the rain turns into a kind of freezing rain, and then that ices up the roads.”

“Wait…” Chris began, genuinely puzzled. “Are you… are you talking about sleet?”

Chris’s boss sat slack-jawed, his face squeezed in a way that indicated that his thunder had clearly been burglarized. He folded his arms on the shelf that was his belly, and he worked his jaw in a way that indicated his thoughts might take awhile.

After a period of uncomfortable silence, the man finally sputtered, “You mean, you have a word for that?”

Chris guffawed.

“Of course we have a word for it. Because it’s a THING! That we experience. UP NORTH. ALL. THE. TIME.”

“Oh. I thought it was just us.”

Then Chris’s boss pivoted on his tidy lady feet and left Chris alone to his laughter.