No Music Monday this week. Instead you get a special report from our news desk: WINTERMAGEDDON2014!!
The first inklings of the horror to come, came when I was told the expected high for the next Monday was 0. Then came the news of a snowstorm before the arctic temperatures. As the weekend drew closer the forecast grew more dire. The expected snow amounts increased 2 – 4 inches, 4-6, 8-12 and the expected high for Monday went down and down 0 , -4, -9, -10. I being hearty midwestern stock didn’t worry. Though I did have to cancel a trip up to my parents.
The Saturday before WINTERMAGEDDON2014 dawned nice and warm. The temperature lingered above freezing most of the day. I enjoyed the pleasant day by going to my second home, Buffalo Wild Wings and watching the nfl playoffs. On the way home I stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few things I needed to complete my slow cooker beef stew (Food Friday post coming). You would have thought the world was ending. I could best describe the place as a madhouse. People ran through the aisles filling their carts with almost anything. I saw people paralyzed with confusion. They would pick up an item from the shelf, stare at it like they had no idea what it was, and then move onto another item. I laughed to myself. I thought “you probably will be able to order a pizza tomorrow.” I went home and snugged myself into bed expecting to wake up to snowmageddon.
Sunday I woke up and rushed to the window like it was Christmas morning. Disappointment set in. Barely an inch of snow cover the ground and it wasn’t even snowing. Stupid weather people had been wrong again. It started snowing again but not too badly. Boredom grew as I sat at home and I decided it was the playoffs and I would go to Buffalo Wild Wings snow or no snow. The streets were all plowed, the mini mall parking lots was cleared. Many people were out shopping. I had made a good decision I thought to myself. And yes the Pizza Hut was open and delivering.
Buffalo Wild Wings was open. At first I sat alone but soon more and more people started coming in. We ended with a pretty good crowd of almost thirty people. As the customer count grew the weather got worse. My twitter feed filled with reports of impassable roads and accidents. At one point a Subaru got stuck in a snow drift outside the BWW and some toughened people went out to help dig him out. It took almost thirty minutes but finally triumphantly, the rescuers returned with the driver to celebrate their victory. We greeted them with a round of applause. We formed a tight band of refugees. It did not matter whether you were a Bears fan, or Packer fan, or even the few 49rs fans who were there. We surmised that if we ended up trapped it wouldn’t be a bad way to spend a night. We had food, a billion tvs, and some benches to sleep on. They had officially closed but let us stay till the end of the game. Worried by the report that they had stopped plowing because the roads had gotten to dangerous I set out home. I trecked home easily. First off I only live like two blocks away so it wasn’t far. Secondly the streets were all cleared and plowed. Once home I covered the windows with sheets and ate my beef stew. Many others were not so lucky. Before I went to bed I read that 100 semis were stranded.
They predicted correctly about the temperature. When I woke up this morning my thermometer read -12.
