Twenty-two Dead and Children Delighted by Snowstorm

nowstorms blanketed the east coast early last week, stopping work in hundreds of towns and cities and creating countless traffic accidents. In the worst cases, 22 in North and South Carolina were killed in storm-related incidents. Schools were also closed in a number of states, thrilling children from grades kindergarten through 12.

"This is a terrible tragedy, the worst thing that's ever happened to us," said Raleigh, North Carolina security guard Cindy Macon. "We've lost power and had to leave our home. The whole family's been staying in a shelter and I can't afford to miss work, but they've closed everything. We're broke and destitute."

"Hooray!" said Evansville, Indiana schoolboy Ricky Teegan. "Snow's everywhere and they closed school! I hear they're probably going to be closed tomorrow, too. This is the best thing that ever happened to us!"

1.2 million homes in the Carolinas were left without power, and power companies are projecting days will be needed to make repairs. Sledding and snowball fights were also rampant in the area, as well as other snowed-in areas throughout the United States.

"We were going to go ice skating at the lake, but the ice was too weak," said Lakewood, Tennessee teen-ager Jamie Farnsworth. "No luck at all!"

"Our son was killed when his car broke through the guard rail and landed on the frozen lake," said Naomi Marquette of Toquin, Ohio, through thick tears. "The police said he survived the crash, but… he broke through and drowned in the water. The ice was too weak."

Greenville, South Carolina police chief Jim Walters said of the snowstorm, "Several houses in the area have lost power, and there have been at least twenty-five car wrecks at last count. But even worse, I hate to think of the impoverished and elderly people in town who can't afford to heat their homes. Once the roads are cleared and everything starts back up like normal I imagine the calls to pick up frozen bodies will start pouring in."

"It's fantastic," said Washington, D.C. college student Mitch Kursky. "I woke up at eight and just turned the radio on. School's closed! I turned up the thermostat, wrapped myself up in the blanket, and went back to sleep."

Initial snowfalls Tuesday and Wednesday covered much of the east coast, and though the snowfall ceased and the snow began to melt by Wednesday evening, extreme temperatures turned the melting snow into ice, creating even more road hazards and danger for travelers, as well as ice balls for snowball fights.

Echoing city officials across the country, Albertville, Illinois mayor Jean Harper advised residents, "Please stay at home if you can, if you are unessential at work or are sanctioned by employers. The storms may have lessened, but the roads are still extremely hazardous in some areas."

"I'm so glad I have the day off," said Caton, West Virginia middle school teacher Ned Murphy. "I'm looking forward to a nice, quiet day all to myself. A quick drive out to rent some videos ought to give me some entertainment. I think I'll order some pizza, too. If they take longer than an hour to get it to me, I get it at half-price."

Iraq blah blah blah Suicide blah blah blah Dead

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Well, looks like we're still bombing the Iraqis out of the Stone Age and back to whatever the hell came before that, when all the stones were blown up and everything was on fire. Serves 'em right for living in the desert though. I lived in the desert outside of Albuquerque once and there were always rednecks out there blowing shit up. Usually it was road signs and small animals and the like, but Iraq's a bigger desert so it stands to reason the rednecks would think bigger.

I was driving up the road the other day when I came up on a man who was standing half in the street, yelling at no one in particular. At first I thought he was yelling at me, but a quick check of my person confirmed that I was wearing nothing more offensive than an L.L. Bean dress shirt. Even if I had been wearing a novelty shirt stating "SHUT UP, BITCH" or other such amusing obscenity, it would have been hard for him to spy that in an oncoming car quickly enough to take offense and express it verbally. I thought the guy was just crazy until I realized he had one of those ear-bud cell phone things in his ear and he was yelling at his stockbroker or his concubine or whoever.

This got me thinking. I predict that cell phones will eventually get so small that we'll have problems with scores of people being committed to mental hospitals for yelling out grocery lists in public and hearing "voices." And personally, I can't wait. I hate those damned phones. And their damned operators.

Looks like those silly sons of bitches that blew up the U.S.S. Cole Porter escaped from jail again. Just goes to show what I've been saying all along: the honor system is great and may work in certain isolated kindergarten classrooms, but jails need real locks, real fast. Some people just don't take to shaming like they should, and lines painted on the floor don't work like they used to. Sad but true.

Contrary to what the previous paragraph might indicate, the biggest news this week is that absolutely nothing is happening in the world outside of Iraq. Nada. Zip. Nothing. Open up the paper and it's all about who blew up what where in Iraq and who might be dead but we'll never be sure and what kinds of cookies Iraqis like to bake. Who knew that dusty-assed place was so interesting? It just goes to show that nothing works wonders for your public visibility like being invaded. It's like when Poland's PR guys paid Germany to invade them back in the 1930's. Sure, some churches got blown up, but like magic Poland was back on the map again. Previous to that people were forgetting the country even existed, it was just some smudge on the map where trains got lost.

Apparently there is a bit of news in the dolphin world, however. Seems that El Presidente wanted to roll back the rules on what kind of tuna can be labeled "dolphin safe" or not. I know, like the president doesn't have better things to do than fuck with dolphins. I don't know what his problem is, but he's always struck me as a strange man. Anyhow, current rules state that you can't label tuna "dolphin safe" if you go so berserk while trying to catch fish that you machete or blow up any dolphins with grenades or you run any down with a speedboat just for fun. I believe there were also provisions for machine-gunning or hanging dolphins, somewhere in the fine print.

Seems fair enough to me. The president wanted to change it so you could call the tuna "dolphin safe" as long as any of the dolphins you decapitated or blended into a milkshake went to dolphin heaven, where they'd theoretically be safe. The environmentalists thought this was so much dolphin shit so they sued. And won while they were at it. I guess there's less legal precedent for the concept of "dolphin heaven" than many assumed. But I don't know, it sounds kind of nice to me.

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I'm not that big a fan of talking. I don't know what the big deal is. It seems like it's basically impossible to find a girl to date who isn't constantly nagging you about that. "What do you want to eat? What are you thinking about? Why did you put my dog in that Ziplock bag?" I swear, if I wanted to be interviewed I'd show up at the airport with lit fuses sticking out of my shoes. I'm just trying to live my life here, not run around in some kind of non-stop monologue nightmare.

It's not just girls, either, there's all kinds of social situations where people just won't let you shut up. You go into a restaurant, and right away, somebody's asking you what you want. And even if you point politely at the menu they still won't leave you alone, they've got to ask for some kind of verbal confirmation. What are you, retarded? I pointed at the duck nuggets, didn't I? You think I'm the kind of person who silently points at food he doesn't want? Think again.

That's why I started eating at fast food places exclusively. It's way easier to gesture your way through a meal there since they've usually got the menu in big pictures over the cash registers. But some of those geniuses have a hard time following an imaginary line from your fingertip to the menu, everything's all "Oh, you want Big Mac?" Even at the Chinese place, weird as shit. And you wouldn't believe the trouble you can get into if you decide to make it easy for them and just reach over to press the cash register buttons yourself. It's like they think you need a degree in nuclear physics to run the thing. I've seen them press the "Slow Loris" button enough times, I know where it is. If you want to have a one-sided argument with me about it, I guess that's just your prerogative.

Nobody's worse about the "no talking" thing that people who call on the phone. Jesus. I don't know where these people come from. If you're going to contact me over a non-visual medium, at least have the courtesy to learn your Morse code, people. I'm willing to meet you half-way in the auditory department, and you're just shitting all over my diplomacy with your "Hello? HELLO?? Is there anybody there? I don't know, it's just this weird tapping noise. I think my phone's fucked up."

As you can imagine, I flunked speech class in college. I thought I could Pictionary my way through it, but my professor was a hard-ass about the talking part. And the rest of the class were horrible guessers anyway. A cow? If you people can't tell the difference between a horse and a cow, remind me never to accept a barbecue invitation over at any of your houses, all right? That was a hard year, both semesters. Eventually I got the requirement waived after arguing (in pictures) that speech class was an illogical requirement for a culinary arts degree.

Of course, that was before I discovered the cruel reality of the world, that nobody wants to hire a chef who doesn't talk. Talk about your discrimination, you're lucky if you can even get past the first interview.

I don't even want to get into the time I was asked to speak at my dad's funeral. There are still a lot of family members who haven't forgiven me for that Mexican standoff or the way the funeral home closed with all of us still in there. I've had half a mind to tell them all off, but they're even worse at Pictionary than my college class was.

But I've said too much already.

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