snomg

Okay Chicago.  I am calling uncle.

I spend a lot of time giving East Coasters a hard time about being such weenies in the snow.  As if the universe hasn't been dropping dump truck loads of snow on the East Coast for the past hundreds of years.  You would think that maybe, at some point, you would buy a plow or two.

Chicago, though, Chicago defies the snow.  It laughs in the face of snow.  It plays the game, "let me tell you about yourself," with the snow.  And for the most part I agree with this philosophy (if you don't like snow, why would you live here?  And further more - why do you think you can complain about it? You knew it was coming).

But there is a time and a place for everything.  And this was the time AND the place for recognizing that you are really no match for Mother Nature.

While I do give the East Coast a ton of crap, I also have to give them credit - they cancel business.  They know that you shouldn't drive in the snow and so they will tell you not to.  And then you will drink hot cocoa and stay in your jammies - and it is quite simply glorious. 

Right now - Chicago is in the middle of a snowstorm that EVERYONE said was coming.  Everyone has been talking about it for days and I know that there have been occasions where these storms do not live up to their hype BUT when the storm has already started other places there is a pretty good chance that it is going to happen.  Like, you don't bet the house but you take into account that if you stubbornly decide to pretend like everything is fine, there is a very real chance that things are going to go poorly.

CPS - You cannot decide to cancel something an hour and a half before its going to happen.  Especially when you are the third largest school district in the country.  Why?  Because you can't call all those people that make you the third largest in an hour and a half.  So what happens is that people who shouldn't have had to go out in the first place are stuck going out because the schools are like, "I know its supposed to be canceled by the parents are expecting them to be here and we can't call all the parents and we can't pay the teachers to stay here any longer and we're paying you any way EEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeee, sorry." 


And its not just CPS - there are other schools that were like "We Are Having Programming No Matter What."  Oh - okay, so are you going to pay people for the additional 3 hours it takes them to get home?  Rules are rules, but when your rules put lives in danger - then guess what?  they're bad rules.  No two ways around it.

Today was pure awful - for the most part because I spent nearly the whole day Waiting to find out if I had a snow day tomorrow (I do - thank the thing high atop the whatever).

And there people in Chicago who are STILL saying, "Its not that bad out."

Guess what - you're wrong and you're kind of crazy.  It is that bad out. There are things flying off the roof of Wrigley Field.  There are 25 ft. waves in Lake Michigan.  YOU CAN'T SEE.  Literally - you cannot see because of the snow and the wind and your own misery blocking your view. It is that bad.

McKim: It is a blizzard.
              Stop trying to be a hero, Chicago


me:        seriously
              Seriously