Friday, January 26, 2007
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This year's first snow
Most of this winter has been unseasonably warm, so there was actually some joy in the Dunce house when the temperatures finally dropped to "real winter" temperatures near or even slightly-below freezing. Perhaps it's because both of us spent many years in the midwest, where Winter actually means something serious (I recall various playground discussions about just how long it takes a person to die at temperatures of X below zero; at what temperature the cool kids will start wearing knit caps; how some kid's brother knows this guy whose friend's private parts got stuck to a metal fence and then an ambulance had to come and they chopped it off and left the aforementioned bits frozen to the fence and a dog came along and ate them so he had to have a sex change and then transfer to another school.... but I digress). One of the best things about winter is, of course, SNOW. Quite rare in these parts these days, which makes the possibility of snowfall even more exciting.

Over the past few years, we've developed a regular competition (which will come as no surprise to any members of our families, I'm sure): the first person to see falling snow each winter is the winner, and receives a prize from the other (as with most Dunce competitions, it's a food-related prize). Exact details are agreed upon sometime in autumn when temperatures start dropping towards "wintry" [in London terms, anyway]). A few simple rules govern this competition, mainly in order to avoid questionable/unfair instances of snow-spotting (Dunces are quite fond of loopholes of various kinds). For example, snowfall must be viewed from the ground, or from a building (flurries viewed only from an airplane are not permissible, unless the airplane is on the ground). Any Dunces traveling separately to other locations (i.e., outside of London) may only win the snow competition if their locations are agreed (in advance) to be reasonably comparable with respect to the likelihood of snowfall. Dunces traveling together to a location outside London must agree whether said location qualifies for inclusion in the snow-spotting competition (most places in southern England, probably YES. Places where snow would be a total fluke, probably YES in the event someone sees such a rare event). Places where snow is possible, likely, or already on the ground, almost certainly NO. Of course a separate competition in such circumstances is always possible). If Dunces are away when the first actual snowfall on London occurs, the competition continues (as the winner is the first person to see falling snow, NOT the first person to see the first falling snow). Snow must also be viewed in person, or through a window (a formal definition of "window" has not been made, but I can assure you that televisions, computers, snow globes, paintings, photographs do not qualify as windows for the purpose of the competition). Precipitation must be agreed by competitors as "snow" in order to qualify (it is well-known that mist, sleet, hail and ice may closely resemble snow: in the event of a claim of "first snow sighting", the loser must agree that, indeed, snow has been sighted. Sore losers and difficult parties may be smacked, and will certainly find the situation more difficult next year if they persist). The sighting of the first snowfall must be announced as soon as reasonably possible, by various means as the situation permits (a proud announcement in person being preferred [if it occurs in the middle of the night, it appears permissible to wake up your fellow competitor, although gloating may be a bit much], but announcement by telephone, text message, email or other means is also acceptable. Falsifying this information [e.g. by changing the time on one's computer to send an email with an earlier time/date] is a serious offense and will be punished by torture and/or death). There are probably a few other rules I haven't touched on, but these provide the simple groundwork.

Anyway, this year's first snow happened this week, right on schedule according to the weather reports: it started falling sometime very early Wednesday morning, and by the time we both got up, an inch or so had fallen already, and a bit more was still on the way down. We were both quite aware that snow was expected, and had both been on a high level of readiness for a few days. But when it comes to morning hours, well perhaps the most charitable way to put it is that Dunces' mental processes slow to a crawl. And the penny didn't drop until we heard the morning weather report on the radio which mentioned winter storms throughout the UK affecting people's morning commutes, and even a specific mention of snow falling on London RIGHT THIS MINUTE. I may have jumped out of bed a little bit faster, but was slowed down because I had to grab my glasses first. We pulled aside the blinds, saw the snow, and shouted "SNOW" at exactly the same time (perhaps high-tech finish-line equipment would have recorded a difference [most likely in my favor]), so this year's competition was a dead heat. As we had no provisions for tie-breaking, this year there are only losers.

I was so miserable at this outcome that I didn't even go to work. Just stayed home moping all day. And I'm still there now, waiting to die. Or, truth be known, I worked at home and waited for our new sofa to be delivered. It was delivered; it's quite nice, and life as we know it continued just fine. But that's hardly an appropriate epilogue.

Friday, January 26, 2007 12:18:01 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [4]  |