Monster Storm

Yes, for those of you that are watching the weather and noticing a monster snow storm coming right my way, please be assured that I am fully stocked with toilet paper, bread, and milk, in that order of importance.  I will survive.

I'm not gonna talk about weather as that is my general policy, other than to make a few comments precipitated by the general state of "snow panic" in our area today.

One, why do people act so frantic in the food store on the day or days before a predicted storm?  I understand there are folks that need medications, and families with babies need to have plenty of milk or formula and diapers, but the rest of us?   Nah.  We really won't die without milk and bread.  That is unless you have to have french toast every day, and in that case, make sure you get the eggs and syrup too.

These panicked folks are the ones in the food stores who carelessly run their grocery carts into the back of my heels, and drive dangerously in the parking lot where there is a large number of pedestrians and other drivers.

I took this next photo on the day before our last predicted snowstorm.  I was shopping for some bread and milk (and other supplies), not because a storm was coming, but because I was simply out of those items.  I don't know the details of what happened here, but this woman outside my food store was not having a good shopping experience:

And my second weather-related baffler concerns those weather channels and the weather scientists who are predicting this "yardstick worthy" snowstorm.  (More snow than a ruler can measure, but somewhere under a yardstick, they say.)  We here in the U.S. are one of about the only two remaining countries left in the world that are still not using the metric system, so don't even get me started on that.

Anyway, what irks me is that mostly everyone around this area is in a state of weather channel induced snow panic, and I have yet to see any real consensus of how much snow we are to get.  I would be content if most of the weather people were basically in agreement.  However, depending which channel or website or app you look at, the report is for anywhere from 2 inches to 18 inches.  Translation:  it might do a little bit of something, or it might become a crippling storm.

That's a wide range of difference.  I'm not even sure if that makes my low supply of toilet paper an issue for concern.

I can't stop myself from thinking back to my years as a math instructor at a nearby college.  I would not have received a paycheck - no - I probably would have lost my job if I did the equations and problems we encountered with that type of answer uncertainty.  That is, the equation   40x - 7 = 33    has one correct answer.  Period.

And, I don't even need any machines or scientific equipment or monitors or any such thing to get it right.  And furthermore, I don't just find an answer in the general vicinity of the correct answer, I find the one and only correct answer.  And finally, I have check systems I can use to make sure my answer is correct.

You would think in this day and age, the weather people could pretty much nail it each time.  But they don't, and so I just scratch my head and wonder at all this latest monster storm frenzy swirling around me.

Sometimes, it's just good to honker down and calmly wait out the storm.  Light a fire in the fireplace, curl up in a comfy blanket, and enjoy a good book.  Put a few pieces into that puzzle, or finish the crossword you started.  Eat soup.  Clean out that drawer you've been meaning to get to.  Bake some cookies or try a new recipe.

As for me?  As long as I have enough good reading material, I'll be fine.

I think I'll survive.