Oh, No--Must Be Season of the Wimp

The volume on the TV set was low, but I could tell from the stricken looks on the anchormen’s faces that a great tragedy had taken place.

As I searched madly for the remote box, I kept watching them as they fought to control themselves. Finally, I punched up the sound.

”. . . and so life must go on,” Anchorman One said.

“Well said, well said,” Anchorman Two said.

What could it be? An airliner down? A bridge collapse? San Francisco falling into the sea?

Calm down, I told myself, maybe somebody died. That was it. Somebody must have died.

And then the camera pulled back for a wide shot and I saw the Weather Woman was on the set. So who could have died? Willard Scott?

Anchorman One began speaking to her. “So tell us, will there be any. . . .” And then his voice broke, just like Cronkite’s did when he told us about Kennedy. “Will there be any . . . accumulation?”

Of course. That was the tragedy. Snow. The worst disaster that can befall this city. Because Washington is not only capital of our nation, it is capital of Snow Wimp America.

If you cover up the lower half of the continental United States with your hand, you have covered Snow Wimp America. This is the region where people look upon snow not as an act of God, but as a personal harbinger of doom. And snow wimps in Washington don’t even call it snow. They call it “The White Death.”

Since most of the people in Washington work for the federal government, it is the government’s duty to officially begin each snow panic.

And so in one tiny office, an office so small that it has but one grime-coated window looking onto an interior courtyard, sits the chief of Snow Wimp Central. Twelve months a year he wears a parka, heavy boots and gloves. When he was a child, a big bully washed his face in the snow and he has hated it ever since.

And now the Chief Snow Wimp waits and watches. And as the first flake falls past his window, he picks up a microphone and he screams: “Go home!”

And half a million federal workers all leap up from their desks, race to the parking lots, get into their cars and jam the highways.

This is all carefully planned. It is planned to allow the mayor of Washington to then go on the radio and say that he can’t get the snow plows out onto the streets because half a million crazed federal workers are blocking them.

You think I am kidding? You think I am exaggerating? The morning that snow was predicted, my friend Brian called me. Brian lives in Washington and I was going there to interview failed presidential candidates--the town is lousy with them--and Brian was going to meet me for lunch in between interviews.

Where are we going for lunch? I asked Brian.

“Look out your window!” he said.

Outside the window, a few mini-flakes were falling. You could not even call them flurries. In most cities, they would be mistaken for white soot.

So what? I said.

“It’s snowing!” Brian said in a tone of voice that suggested particles of plutonium were falling from the sky. “We can’t go out in this!”

C’mon, I told him. It’ll stop by noon. Let’s risk it. After all, you used to live in Chicago. You’ve gone through worse than this.

’

‘That’s before I had a child,” Brian said. “I have responsibilities now.” And he hung up so he could go to the 7-Eleven and buy up all the milk and bread so that nobody else would be able to go to the 7-Eleven and buy up all the milk and bread.

I got into my car and drove into Washington. A steady stream of crazed humanoids drove past me in the other direction. These were the federal workers trying to drive through the not-quite-flurries. Though it was not dark, all the drivers had their headlights on. Most of them had their flashers on. A small gust of wind picked up a few flakes and whipped them around and some drivers began abandoning their cars on the interstate and scrambling up the embankments so they could walk home.

By the time I reached Capitol Hill, the snow was tapering off. In any other city, it would have been called a “dusting.” In Washington, it had been enough to empty the city. The streets were deserted, except for one forlorn woman waiting for a bus.

And she carried with her the sign of the true snow wimp: an open umbrella. Snow wimps always confuse rain and snow.

I pulled up to the bus stop and rolled down my window.

Excuse me, madam, I said. But do you realize that snow could collect on your umbrella? And build up to a crushing weight? And snap the umbrella shut? Cutting off your head?

“ Arrggghhh !,” she yelled, throwing her umbrella away and running off down the street.

So who says you can’t have fun in the snow?