Whoa, boy – it’s been a crazy week, hasn’t it?! And I’m not even talking about that Olympic fever that I hear has been going around lately. If you find yourself showing symptoms, I would recommend clearing off all those old episodes of Dharma & Greg on your Tivo, stocking up on beer and Doritos for sustenance (…because let’s face it, those who can’t do watch it on TV every four years instead of going out and getting a little exercise…), and then ultimately calling in for work for the next two weeks.
On the other hand, if you happened to live in Florida anytime over the last week, I would recommend thanking Jebus or your lucky stars or whatever imaginary idol that you might happen to worship for our state staying firmly planted on the map exactly where it was before Tropical Storm Fay wandered drunkenly into our lives from somewhere near the Dominican Republic.
Actually, Fay ended up being a pretty lame storm, but at least she was a storm at all and that’s more than we’ve been able to say for quite a while! It’s been a couple of years since we’ve really had to even deal with hurricanes, so if anything this was a good opportunity to see that we all still remember how to panic and run around like we’ve never conceived the notion of inclement weather even so much as glancing suspiciously in Florida’s direction. As if our homeowner’s insurance rates are sky-high just because our insurance companies enjoy fleecing their customers for everything their worth, plus another 45% next year, with state approval…
Our local news crews did their part of driving everyone into an absolute frenzy by offering 28 hours a day of storm coverage, bringing us such important news bulletins as how the lady down the street’s dog is preparing for the storm and what not to wear at the shelter to avoid getting beaten up.
As usual, grocery stores across the state sold ridiculous amounts of water just in case suburban families didn’t have enough crap to prevent themselves from parking in their own garages already. Also quick to fly off the shelves were pop-tarts, beef jerky, and of course, copious amounts of beer – because let’s face it, for many the idea of being stuck indoors with the family for an extended period of time and also being sober simply isn’t an option.
And then there’s our studious weathermen – what can we possibly even say about these guys that hasn’t already gotten me plenty of hatemail from columns past? Seriously, I think you’ve really got to hand it to them this time – they really nailed Fay’s path down with the pinpoint accuracy that one could only expect from a multi-million dollar system of radar and elaborate computer-generated models. I mean, first it was coming straight at us, then it was going to miss us by just a hair, then it was thinking about swinging back around for another pass after stopping off for 2-for-1 happy hour at Chilis – the only way their predictions could’ve been any more accurate would’ve been if they’d had a monkey just pick random cities out of a hat and then plotted those points on a map, then crumpled the map up and ran it through the dryer a couple of times. Keep up the great work, folks!
I guess the important thing is that we all made it out ok and didn’t end up having to pick up pieces of our roofs out of the neighbor’s yard, or worse yet, actually put that beer and jerky to use while enduring hour seventeen of Family Game Night: Hurricane Edition – believe it or not, even cheating at Monopoly begins to lose its flair after the third or fourth game. Of course, the other side of the coin is that we still have a couple of solid months of hurricane season left this year, so don’t blow through that booze stash just yet – you may still need it before the year is up…
Oh, who am I kidding – you can always buy more in a sobering panic the next time the news man sounds the alarm!