Frigidly Cold, With A Couple of Blizzards Thrown In For Good Measure

I am breaking my blogging silence here to let you know that we have indeed survived (so far) what has become known as Snowmageddon 2011.

"Whew!" you say. "And here I thought you were already dead all these months you haven't bothered to write A SINGLE WORD. So nice to know you're at least ALIVE."

Don't worry. My bags have already been packed for THAT little guilt trip. I've been on it for quite a while now, and while the scenery is nice, I'd just as soon be home in bed, thankyouverymuch.

Sheesh.

Back to the present.

Snowmageddon 2011 has been quite the talk of the town. We knew it was on the way because it was all the weather and news people could think to tell us about for days on end prior to the storm (the second in as many weeks), and they had to make it more DRAMATIC and more ANGST-RIDDEN and much more DANGEROUS than it actually was to hype up the news value to the listening/viewing public.

Hence, the grocery stores sold out of staples, schools closed without real reason an hour early the day BEFORE the snow hit, and almost all of the city came to a standstill. It was as if some ice crystals had the ability to snuff out life as we know it simply by coming down out of the sky, so businesses, schools, and other functions just stopped. Everyone went home.

And that, my friends, proved to be the downfall of many.

Because once home, in an unfamiliar environment at an unfamiliar time of day with unfamiliar dealings with family members and/or those you room with or befriend on a daily basis at school, things change. Nerves begin to become raw. That friend of your son's who laughs a little loudly and eats everything in the house without asking becomes THE THING WHO WILL NOT LEAVE. And everything he does begins to rub you the wrong way.

And then your son begins to rub you the wrong way because he will not take THE THING WHO WILL NOT LEAVE back home to his house. Your son persists in playing video games on the television in the living room with the sound level only a few decibles short of ear drum vaporization. WITH. MANY. GUNS. SHOOTING. ALL. THE. TIME.

It is at these times I reach for the car keys and Daisy Mae it out of the garage and down the road to the nearest Wal-Mart just as fast as my little wheels will drive me. Because as we all know, Wal-Mart is the cheapest mental therapy a gal can get during a snowstorm. That is why when The Girl called me in near hysterics from college yesterday, I was able to calmly and forcibly tell her what to do.

You see, the town her school is in had a record snowfall this week. She, The One Who Flits, was stuck in a room not much larger than a couple of jail cells pasted together, and that's exactly how she felt. By the end of Day 2 of over 20 inches of snow with no escape, she was like a caged animal on PMS. I felt sorry for her boyfriend.

But Mama's been there, Honey. Mama's been there.

So when I got the frenzied phone call I knew just what to tell her to do. It didn't matter that she had to dig her car out with her bare hands to even be able to leave the parking lot. It didn't matter that she could freeze to death along the way.

Wal-Mart was beckoning, and she had to heed the call. It's part of our heritage. Part of our female-ness.

The cure to claustrophobia at its finest.

When I called her later to see how she was, I spoke to a different person entirely. I knew I would. An hour spent in Wal-Mart during a blizzard is like an hour in a spa during the Peace Talks. Trust me on this point.

She was calm, she was cool, she was collected. She was, dare I say it? HAPPY. Planning to play board games with her boyfriend and his roommates at his house.

I heaved a sigh of relief and chalked up another one for Wal-Mart Therapy. It never fails.