Humor: Snowed in

My son was poised in anticipation by the television as we watched the news. A third grader interested in the news you may ask? Yeah, it’s all in the parenting skills. I keep him on a steady diet of CNN, the Nightly Newshour and we read the Economist together for book reports. I can’t tell you how hard it is to talk him down from a debate on the continued war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. I’m grooming him to be the next savior of the universe in line with Flash and Barack Obama.

Actually, we’re just watching the local news. A combination of inane drivel and plastic looking people making a mountain out of the proverbial molehill. I think someone found a weird colored mold again and some wide eyed journalist is trying to sell me that it’s the end of the world.

My son could care less about any of it. He just wants to see the ticker at the bottom of the screen.

Nope, he’s not a stock wiz at the tender age of 8. He’s not even watching some sort of local “hey look at me I’m spamming broadcast TV” sort of trick where people text in even more inane junk from their I-phone. The steady ticker is displaying a list of schools in the area. Schools that might possibly be affected by and hence start a tad late or even close for the day due to the terrible, horrific weather headed this way.

Well, at least he’s watching something other than Cartoon Network (though I’m not putting the local news ahead of Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends or really any of the Adult Swim material; except the one with the disturbed fry guy.)

Anyway, the big hubbub tonight is that it may actually dip below freezing at some point before the sun comes up. Along with this is a slight chance of precipitation which may, just possibly form into snow.

At this point, I have to mention to my readers, we live in central Texas. Essentially this place is an arid desert. If it weren’t for homeowners running their sprinkler systems literally year round, the only thing green would be the occasional weed which passes for a tree and a thick carpet of poison ivy. So, winter weather is sort of a joke here. Maybe one day a year, the skies will produce something resembling snow. I’ll pull my kid out of school so we can make a proper snowman on a tight schedule and we’ll be flying the flag at half mast for Mr. Snowy just about lunch time.

The weather man is working hard at selling the terror of this condition. This way, you’ll wait for his piece and be hanging on his every word. In some ways though, it is