Hey there!

I’m gonna tell you something that you may already know if you have ever watched the Weather Channel. We, here in the south, do not do winter very well. Okay, we don’t do winter at all. The threat of snow here in Atlanta may as well be a code red, DEFCON-1, absolute certainty of nuclear war with the way we descend on the grocery stores and start snatching up food. There was meat on this shelf earlier in the day before the panicked flock of vultures swept in and picked it clean.

Again, this is just with the threat of snow, before the first flurry falls there are sirens and wailing and gnashing of teeth throughout the streets of Atlanta. The real fun starts when the snow actually starts to fall. It is at this time that a couple of things happen like clockwork.

1. People are caught off guard – It’s as if the people that live here thought that the snow was a fluke, like it can’t happen here or something like that. You know these people; they are usually the ones shown on the news stranded the interstate trying to make a last minute run to the store since “it’s really happening” or the ones that have their feelings of snow invincibility and venture out anyway; usually transplanted Northerners that allegedly “know what they are doing.” **eye roll**
2. The Northerners start chirping –Whenever we get our 5-6 inches of snow and we start ramping up our preparedness there’s the inevitable chortling from those in snowbunny land (usually the northeast). “What’s wrong with them down there”, they ask. “5-6 inches is nothing, what are they panicking about”, they say. Well let me tell you something, Mr. Northern Snowbunny Person. First of all, 5-6 inches of snow here is 25 feet to you, especially when the three salt trucks in the city are Ford F-150s with guys sprinkling table salt off the back. Equally funny are the transplants that move here from Boston, Chicago, or New York and think “I know what I’m doing, I can drive in this stuff, these Southerners are just amateurs.” Next thing you know he’s sliding sideways down the interstate and being interviewed by Channel 5 on why he’s facing southbound in a northbound lane. Just because you grew up walking to school in 7 feet of snow uphill both ways doesn’t mean we all need or want to…now shut up, drink some coffee and enjoy the snow day.
3. TV cancels all local programming – Some of my fondest memories as a kid on days like this when we’re having a Snowpacalypse Day were getting up, making breakfast and watching The Price Is Right. When the snow starting falling last night I wanted to re-live those memories so this morning I got up and started scrambling eggs, flipped on the TV to find The Price is Right, and instead there’s news, then more news, and on the other networks news and more news all showing the same idiots who ventured out and are now stuck on the road. Daggonit, I’m supposed to be screaming “higher” and “lower” right now or guessing the price on the next item up for bid, not watching the local anchorman getting pushed down a snowy hill in a laundry basket (we typically don’t have sleds here, not worth the investment to use 1 day a year, laundry baskets or trash can lids usually are good substitutes)
4. We all turn into kids – Since we don’t get a lot of snow it’s not seen as a nuisance here, it’s still fun to us, there may be a year where we don’t get considerable snow so when we get it we all turn 8 again. We run outside, we find a hill to slide down, we throw a snowball at the cat, we take pictures of the icicles and me, well, I went outside and made a snow angel on my deck…my first snow angel since I was about 10 and was well worth the mopping I had to do after tracking snow back into the house.

There’s actually far more quirks about winter in the South that I’d love to share with you all but my inner 8-year-old wants to go outside and throw a few snowballs so I’m gonna get dressed, get my gloves and make it happen. SNOW DAAAAYYYYYYY!!!!!

~thanks for reading 🙂