Snowstorms Worst to Hit U.S. Since Winter

mericans who survived the weekend are gearing up for even worse weather in the near future, as the country continues to be belted by the worst snows since Winter.

The National Weather Service issued a "snow" alert for the colder portions of the country, warning that dropping temperatures could lead to more frozen precipitation and the possible disasters that usually result from bad snowstorms.

Most were taken by surprise last week when heavy snows began falling from the sky, accumulating on the ground and making for unusual driving conditions, as well as dangerous outside work or play environments. It was a shock when a mere three months ago the temperatures were routinely in the 60- or even 70-degrees in the same areas.

"I was out here wearing a jacket last week, just raking up the leaves," said Trenton, New Jersey McDonald's Manager Vera Klein. "I came out this morning and, instantly, I was cold. I have to put on a heavier jacket. I don't even know what to think."

The surprising, out-of-the-blue storms resulted in the deaths of four people across the East Coast, most in traffic-related accidents. Some are worried it's only the tip of the iceberg, pun intended.

"Traffic deaths are the most obvious," said New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Saturday, speaking on a private C.B. radio from his snowed-in mansion. "When the snow melts, I worry we may find bodies under the snow. The people who didn't make it out in time."

In some areas, early estimates were putting the snow in the inches, or occasionally the foot, foot and half. Few were getting out to validate those claims, however.

Some were visiting from other, sunnier climates when the snow instantly fell and trapped them in their East Coast locations. Kenny Gulliver, a retired traveling hobo from Arizona, was vacationing with his harmonica in Philadelphia when the snowstorms hit.

"I managed to find me a rail yard and a boxcar full of pimentos, so I'll be okay," said Gulliver. "For a while, anyway. You just got to hope it will all be over soon and you'll be able to see the ground again. Some people are saying this could last until Spring, maybe even longer. You got to pray that's not the case."

Gulliver then proceeded to play "Pick a Bale of Cotton" as requested, and we bided the time until a snowmobile rescue team picked the two of us up. There wasn't enough room for the harmonica.

Linda "Muscles" McClanahan, a spokesperson from the National Weather Service, advised people to keep calm and think rationally.

"Obviously you don't want to go out in this weather unless it's absolutely necessary," said McClanahan, "or you really want to see what everyone else is doing out there. If you have to go out, take some precaution. Wear clothes, maybe even more than one pair. If you wear two hats, take a picture of it and send it to us—we might make you our 'Wacky Hat of the Month' winner. Put chains on your tires to improve your car's traction, or your unicycle. Put some chains on the top of the car as well, in case it rolls over. Put some chains on yourself, too. It's not necessarily useful, but you can pretend to be the only survivor in a Mad Max-type post-apocalyptic future."

Having tried it, this reporter can vouch for the effectiveness of all suggestions, especially the latter.

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From the first day I pulled Nevil out of my duffel bag and locked him in the trophy case in my living room, I thought that I was pretty damn clever for acquiring a midget. I pictured all kinds of everyday tasks that he could perform for me; it would be like having my own butler, only puntable and hilarious. Who wouldn't want a comically undersized sidekick to make their bed, brush their teeth, or stand in for them as a real life stunt double in situations they personally didn't want to be associated with, like work, paying taxes, going to jail, or being gang fucked in a dark alley by a group of Hell's Angels hopped up on PCP?

Fate, it seems, has a cruel way of twisting your dreams into reality.

It seems like I cater to that fucking midget more then he ever waits on me. For the longest time I couldn't even take him on a walk through a decent neighborhood without him darting off and humping somebody's front yard gnomes. I can't count the number of times we would've both been arrested if it weren't for my quick thinking, drop-kicking Nevil into the hedges and soaking up the accolades from homeowners who thought I'd just saved their landscaping from some kind of demented, randy troll.

Eventually I had to solve this problem by stealing one of those remote control shock collars. It didn't seem to be doing the trick at first, if anything the shocks just got Nevil excited, but after I replaced that pussy-assed 9V battery with a Sears DieHard he started singing a different tune. I'm not sure what, it sounded like "Greensleeves" but it's hard to scream in tune when you're on fire. The shock from that car battery is so strong it'll blow a midget clean across the street, and he'll shit his pants in mid-air or your money back. That little fucker even stopped biting, hissing and spitting. I'm telling you, a shock collar is the gift that keeps on giving. Remember that come Christmastime, especially if anyone on your list owns a midget or an ornery dwarf.

In the end, I guess my biggest midget-owning gripe is still maintenance. I had a big problem with him drinking out of the toilet in my apartment, which sounds funny until you get up in the middle of the night to take a crap and realize you've just shit up the back of a midget's jammies. Trust me, that makes leaving the toilet seat up seem like no big deal. So after I got the collar, I decided to hide in the bathroom closet and wait until Nevil got his tongue in the water before I hit the button. Holy shit! Now he won't even go near the fuckin' bathroom.

So what does he do? He shits in the bottom drawer of my fridge. I should have gotten a hamster.

The vet says that Nevil doesn't have any hair anymore due to the hundreds of thousands of volts that I run through him on a daily basis, and that I should find other ways to discipline my midget. Yadda yadda yadda. But I'm nothing if not a humanitarian, so for a week I took the damned collar off. Every time he did something that I didn't like, picking at the paint on the walls, trying on my clothes, trying to escape, or pissing in my closet, I would beat him shitty with a pick-ax handle instead. Trust me, it was good exercise, but nowhere near as convenient. That and my neighbors were always complaining about the noise and asking if they could borrow my croquet set.

Communication is a big problem too. It would be so much easier if Nevil could talk. All he ever does is grunt and growl. Why can't midgets ever talk? You'd think they'd be great at it, since they constantly need help when they can't reach things. I'd expect a midget kid to be able to say "Hey bitch, hand me that sammich!" by the time they're two. Of course, maybe at one time he could talk. But when I found him, in order to subdue the little bastard enough to get him into my bag I had to stab Nevil in the throat with a piece of splintered wood, then tape the wound shut with duct tape so he wouldn't die. I wasn't worried about it at the time, since I already knew that midgets can't feel pain. So don't say I never learned anything in school. But I think that might have had something to do with his lack of conversation skills.

So a word to the wise, for those of you who are thinking about getting a midget: Think twice, because it will be more of you taking care of them, and not the other way around.

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Hey commune folk. Stu here.

Thanks to a little bird who gave me the word I'm now officially up to speed on the whole situation. The Cubans, the whole acid rain deal, and the clandestine adventures of your friend and mine, Senior Swashbuckle. Some pretty wild shit if I do say so myself, and in case anyone's taking notes: I do. Now that I've got it all under control I feel comfortable sending you this. Yes! A human pancreas! Gross! No, but seriously, that was a joke, and if I really scared you then I think it's time to admit that you have absolutely no idea what a human pancreas really looks like. I think they have informational pamphlets down at the DMV that can help you with that. In actual actuality, I have sent you this column, at least in some loosey-goosey futuristic sense of the word "sent," you beamed it down or whatever from the intergalactic informational alcove where I had seen to it being stored. You know the score.

This is it, folks, the Stu Umbrage Show. What you see is what you get, and that includes more topless birds than the Tropicana and Charlie Sheen's house combined. So if you don't like it you can blame me, and also kiss my black ass while you're at it. On a side note, I was trying to get Diana Ross to be my column sidekick here, but it didn't work out because she had no idea who I was and also I use phrases like "kiss my black ass" far too often.

Sure, the idea of a sidekick for a humor column is a fairly revolutionary one, but I think it's solid. After all, I don't hear any of you laughing. Which may be some kind of technical issue we haven't resolved yet, but in the meantime I could use somebody to sit over here and laugh like I just pulled the tonsils out of the lead guy from Weezer when I type the punchlines. Carson made it work on the Tonight Show, which revealed the show's roots: him and McMahon sitting in Johnny's basement, smashed on Absolut and babbling incoherently about current events and Ed's supernaturally large goiter. But damnit, it worked. They didn't make an afterschool special about it, but it worked.

This has been a crazy year already, and I'm not even talking about those cannibals they found living in the walls at the White House. Those guys got a bad rap, you know what I'm talking about? It reminded me of the last few Public Enemy albums.

Anybody else out there realize that salsa is a food as well as a dance style? I've never been so embarrassed in my life; I always thought you had to be a bum to get kicked out of a Mexican restaurant. This country's going to hell and nobody's stopping for bathroom breaks, be advised.

I've often wondered what our medical profession would be like if cancer gave you really big breasts instead of just rotting out your organs and whatnot. Dollars to dodos says they'd be force-feeding skinny blonde broads asbestos in day spas all over L.A., and the doctors would all turn their attentions to curing whatever the hell is wrong with Pauly Shore. Mark my words, on the off chance something truly freaky happens and that situation actually comes up.

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