LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW


ha... you are confused by my outrageous oxymoron, are you not? yet, when you look at it like this: it's 94 degrees and 1,000% humidity, all i can think of is pure, luscious snowy goodness.

be it known to all the world that i prefer winter to summer...yup... you heard that right. get this, you can always put more layers on to get warm... but when it's hot... there's a limit to how far one can go, if you catch my drift (pun intended).

so as i think of snow, my mind drifts (wow i am full of the same lame pun today, aren't i?) to a rather funny scenario that i will share with you all... the BLIZZARD OF OUGHT 3.

here goes. it was early december in the year of our Lord 2003 when the clouds opened up and vomited snow all over boston... we were on the brink of turning into antarctica. i was new to the commonwealth and had never seen snow like this before... and had never experienced "humid cold" before either. DUDE!

anyway, it was a saturday and we had been told that they would declare a snow emergency later that evening, which meant a few things. 1) church the following day would be canceled and 2) all those things i needed to get done should get done now, before it was too late. one of which was mailing some very important docs. to my daddy in ut, the other was stocking our barren shelves with something edible or we starve.

at this particular time, i lived just outside of teele sq. in somerville, which is about a 10 minute walk to davis sq. (where the UPS store was). i was in an adventurous-type mood and decided to go for a walk and my then newly found friend and roomie, MARY, decided she would head out with me. good exercise before we would no longer have the chance. so off we go.

at first it wasn't that bad, well... it wasn't unbearable... okay let's be honest, after about 10 steps in calf-high snow... you begin to rethink your decision. but too late, you made your choice... get on with it. so about 40 minutes later in our 10 minute walk, mary and i stomp our way through the doors of the ups store and i "do my biz-naz." then back out we go. at this point, mary and i are used to the trudge and are making enough jokes to ease the pain... we're doing okay.

we decide to head back up to teele sq. after making a quick stop at a local "qwick mart" which had nothing desirable and we would have paid $8 for a can of soda... no thank you habeeb, i will take my business elsewhere.

THE FOOD MASTER-- i hate the name of that store... it makes it sound like some store in vegas that sells scary touristy pornographic paraphernelia.

like i was saying our local grocery store was about a 10 minute walk in the other direction from our house so by the time we reached our street, we decided "if we don't just go now, we wouldn't find the strength to donn our layers again..." so we began walking down the slight incline to "JOHNNY'S."

20 minutes later, we make it. we quickly grab our cart (they call them carriages out here) and begin speeding down the first isle. we have truly worked up an appetite by now and it was truly amazing to see how swiftly our cart was filled. but we were happy and had gotten all of the important comfort foods necessary for when you are snowed in.

beep... beep... beep-- ahh the beautiful, obnoxious sound of the cash register as it tallies the amount of all our wares. we soon start to realize that not one thing on the conveyor belt is of any nutritional value... hmm... cookies- check, doritos- check, diet coke- double check... okay anything else? yeah-- popcorn, well that IS like eating corn on the cob, right? and twizzlers, strawberry flavored... strawberries are healthy. okay what about the ice cream... it's important to have dairy! see, there were SOME healthy things. alright, maybe we did splurge on the calorie counter with the extra rich hot chocolate mix and the package of miniature reese's peanut butter cups! but hey... we could starve... it was a blizzard and who knows the next time we would get to the store to buy the essentials!

so we're giggling to ourselves and trying to justify each and every choice and decided that we NEED all of these things and refuse to put anything back.

excuse me? i'm sorry mr cash register man... i don't think i heard you correctly. i thought you said the total was $80.00. i guess i wasn't paying attention... could you repeat how much the total is just one more time please? eh hem... oh... i see... well so that's 80... not 18... riiiiighht. for one second i can see the loser that i am in the reflection of mr cash register man's glasses and decide... what the hay... i could be dead by tomorrow and by that time the calories wouldn't have time to coagulate yet anyway.

ALRIGHT MR BAGGER MAN... LOAD EM UP! 20, 40, 60, 80... who needs all that hard earned cash for something reasonable anyway... right? can i get an AMEN?

$80 worth of junk food people!!!

okay, so back to the blizzard. there's something really funny about buying groceries and then realizing that you don't have a trunk of a car to stow them while you make the journey to your house. in fact, you didn't even take into consideration that you would be walking through a foot and a half of snow and hey captain amazing... did you bother to look outside... it decided to vomit again and is now adding inches by the second... oh... goody! oh and one more thing... MISS UTAH here doesn't own a pair of gloves. well, i owned a pair of really thick ski gloves... but i didn't want to bother with them at the time and didn't have those cute cotton gloves that everyone sports out here (cause they are actually intelligent). and in utah i never had to worry about my finger falling off like an icicle because it was exposed to the frigid new england weather for more than 5 minutes... so you see... i was so innocent. but i paid a price.

so there i am, standing outside of the food master with 4 bags in each hand (each weighing in at 90 pounds) and i am looking at my wonderful california-bred roommate and we just start to laugh. WHAT ARE WE DOING??? now because mary is a saint... she takes one look at my naked hands and realizes that there is no way i would make it and takes off one of her gloves and hands it to me... we'll share. MARY... YOU ROCK!

one deep breath, a comment about how lovely a day it is and we're skipping off to our humble abode. 2 minutes into it... i decide i want to die. i realize that i probably looked like i was practicing to be in a marching band for the mentally retarded... but it didn't matter... just get me home.

TEELE SQUARE AUTO... the half way marker and there we were standing in front of the sign. we need a break. we put our bags down and decide it would be a good time to switch gloves so that my hand that now resembles a block of ice can somehow thaw out before the frost bite really sets in. we make the switch and once again pick up our pounds of CRAP and begin again to our destination. then i hear a cry out that sends chills down my spine... it's mary... the bag with the 4 liters of soda has given up and decided to go to plastic bag heaven right then and there... with all of it's contents strewn across the powdered pavement. i turn to see mary scrambling to pick up all items and find places for them, i rush to her side to help and just like out of the movie BORN ON THE 4th OF JULY she screams out...

"no... go on without me... i'll be okay... save yourself!!!"
"NO MARY... I'M NOT LEAVING WITHOUT YOU... OR THE DIET COKE!!!"

and just as if we were dreaming, a man who had stopped to get gas, was by our side with a new, used plastic bag from his car. his halo was glowing as mary took the bag from his saintly grasp. she quickly loaded up and once again we were off.

ENDICOTT... we made it!!! now we are just yards from home and i feel like crying. but not now otherwise the tears will join with the snot and freeze to my already wind-burnt, frost-bitten face. but i'm so tired... i want to give up... yet we're at the home stretch (literally)

must... keep... going.

but i can't, i just can't take another step. i turn around to see mary a few feet behind me and realize that it's easier to walk backward... yes, now we're getting somewhere! and then, as if i had been given an early christmas present... i'm home.

our astonished roommate elizabeth can do nothing but giggle as we enter the house... peel off the layers of wet, freezing clothing, lay the oodles of bags in the kitchen and sprawl out on the living room floor. WE MADE IT! 14 ENDICOTT I LOVE YOU!

ah yes... you may have laughed at this story, but it was we who were laughing all the way to 200 pounds as we delighted in stuffing our faces with our treasured delights. and we had a snow day the next day, which was even better.

okay, i'm feeling a little cooler now, are you?