“Lewiston and Auburn are expected to get about 6 inches of heavy, wet snow which is likely to hamper the Tuesday morning commute.”
“Arctic front brings record-breaking cold …”
“Wind chill could drop as low as 42 below zero.”
“… schools canceled again. Up to 16 inches of snow expected in some areas.”
“Sir, you can’t do that here. This is a public library.”
I’m just going to go ahead and say it. This November is the worst. Hell, it might even be the End Times. The Bible’s got locusts, boils and rains of frogs; we’ve got skin-lashing cold, mountains of snow and kids home from school before the month is even through.
Let’s face it. November is a dreary, soulless stretch of blech even in good years. This year, though, it’s a horror movie monster — it’s the masked killer rising up off the floor after you’ve stabbed him in the eye with a coat hanger. It’s the shape-shifting thing that exploded out of the Arctic ice or the cute little boy with three sixes carved into his scalp.
It’s evil, I’m saying, and its wickedness is compounded by the fact that we’ve only just started our journey into the black mouth of winter. What I wouldn’t give to be in the grip of February, where at least we’ll have the comfort of knowing we’re shooting out winter’s other end.
And it hasn’t been just snowy and cold, it’s been RECORD BREAKING snowy and cold, at least according to a breathless and red-nosed news media, who just love records of all kinds.
News reporters, in cahoots with modern meteorologists with their fancy computers and Facebook pages, have the power to turn just about any ordinary event into a record-breaker.
Why, here’s a TV news reporter now. He’s standing out on Main Street in a station-issued WLOL ski jacket while a cold November wind blows through his $120 haircut. With his basso voice and dire, this-could-be-the-end expression, he’s here to tell you that the previous day’s 4-incher was no ordinary storm, by gum.
“Yesterday’s snow,” he says, and his voice really is quite lovely, “was the most in 30 years to fall in an even number of counties on a year in which Arbor Day did not fall on a Wednesday. This one was truly historic. Back to Jane in the studio with a gripping report on the record-breaking outbreak of snow acne.”
And hey, who knows. Maybe WLOL’s man on the street isn’t just drunk on cheap wine this time. Maybe this November really is breaking some records, because as we discussed above, it has been truly and monstrously evil from the start. Schools have already canceled classes not once, not twice, but thrice. When it’s not snowing, it’s raining. When it’s not raining, it’s roughly the same temperature as deep space.
Oh, and Tuesday’s storm, what a beauty, right? On Tuesday, the ruler of the hell pit that is November wasn’t content with sending us just rain or just snow. Oh, no! For this one, that loathsome serpent sent us a vile combination of both, so that the substance we tried to shovel from our yards or blow through clogged chutes was roughly the same consistency of freshly poured concrete. If you didn’t blow out a ventricle trying to shovel that crap, you probably lost three fingers and your mind trying to unclog the Toro for the 10th time that morning.
I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that November wants us all dead and it will stop at nothing to see us in our graves before Christmas.
OK, maybe that’s a little bit of an exaggeration, but I’m pretty sure I’m right about that End Times thing. If this November is an indication of the season to come, every one of us will be crawling with boils and buried in a mound of slush by the time calendar winter stomps its way into the world in three weeks.
The only thing I can recommend is prayer, at this point, and liberal weeping.
Long underwear and cheap wine wouldn’t hurt. Lots of cheap wine. Record-breaking volumes of it.
Mark LaFlamme is a Sun Journal staff writer. You won’t see him reporting from the street in his $7 flat-top. Email him at mlaflamme@sunjournal.com.
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