Are you absolutely sure you need to go out?

Snow has been piling up all day, leaving Minnesota blanketed thickly in the white stuff and pretty much incapacitated. My husband wouldn’t even chance a little drive to Target this afternoon. I thought it would be the perfect time to Christmas shop—with no one else there. But perhaps there really was no one else there. In that case, it would have been a wasted adventure. So, being the common-sense (old) people that we are, we stayed home and watched the snow pile up from the safety of our front window.

The news people have been very excited about the weather all day. They keep telling us that it’s one of the top ten snowiest days on record and the wind is blowing and the wind chills are dipping and look at all the cars stuck on the highway and stay at home if you don’t absolutely have to go out!

I’m not sure what they mean by absolutely. If I stick my foot in the snow blower and need to see a doctor right away, would that be worthy of traveling on city streets? Or would it have to be something more pressing, like getting to the movie theatre before they stop showing, Morning Glory? I still haven’t seen that one yet.

Apparently, the weather forecasters think going to work at a news station to stand outside in the blowing snow and tell us it’s snowing like the dickens is absolutely pressing enough to travel the streets of the city.

The weather makes them absolutely breathless with excitement. Probably from standing outside letting it whip them in the face while they yell at the camera. It’s Minnesota’s chance to shine in the weather department. Our weathermen never get to stand in the middle of 100 mile an hour hurricane winds, while sea spray and slanting rain soaks them to the skin, hanging on for dear life to the side of a dock. Snow is what they have to work with—and they are working it!