Downhill Stuff

Hopefully, you've survived our recent rash of the white stuff. I think if I can type this, then I did as well and we can proceed from there. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you probably live somewhere other than Texas or the East Coast of the United (for the most part) States and have gotten off very lucky this time (and good for you).

A lot of us had a lot of snow in the course of this week, though here in Southeastern Connecticut, it didn't really start to get serious until Super Bowl Sunday. But when it did, it really did. The snow started to pile higher and the wind the Weather Channel had warned us about for hours finally arrived ('hurray!' say the happy faces on the TV, 'we're right!' Well, yeah, even a blind pig finds an acorn) and all that wild guessing sure helped, didn't it?

As the week unfolded and we ended up with some snow seemingly every other day, more and more of us trekked out to the grocery store to get milk and toilet paper. It's what we do here in the Land of Steady of Habits. We may have clogged arteries, but our colons are so clean we can pass a Cadillac. In light of the snow we've had in the years we've lived up here, it's a miracle we have any cows left. And don't get me started on low-Flo toilets. You prepare for Armageddon your way, and we'll do it ours.

Of course, the store was mobbed. Each storm could be the one. Just like the previous one or the next one. You cannot be too careful. When you live in the oldest part of the country you learn to measure twice before cutting off your nose once to spite your face. Tell you what was MOST interesting to me, the number of folks going in and out of the liquor store near the mall where the grocery store is located.

At first, I thought maybe people had gotten confused as to where the gas station was located to get fuel for the snow blowers as that's just a little farther down the street. But as I'm waiting to make my turn against traffic at the light, I'm watching folks in my mirror come out of the spirits shop with every assortment of brown bag imaginable-and in this state, there's not a lot else that comes in brown paper bags except liquor (so much for sweet mystery), leading me to wonder if some of us prepare to get plowed at a more literal level than others.

-bill kenny