Winter Blast 2002!

By Dave Fox

Seattle was paralized last weekend when an icy blizzard dumped 0.2 inches of snow on the city in 24 hours.

Seattle's Office of Snow Emergency Management ordered all citizens to panic and hoard food. To assist the panic process, it then ordered all grocery stores to close.

George Hionopoulos, Director of the Office of Snow Emergency Management, could not be reached for comment because he is fictitious. His office, however, sent the following statement:

When I moved to Seattle from Wisconsin six years ago, I was warned. People here cope with snow in roughly the same way infants cope with tetanus shots. They freak out.

The first time I ever experienced a snowstorm in this city was in 1996. Driving to work, I nearly ran into a car that pulled out in front of me. The driver of the other car was playing a game called "Submarine." The way you play Submarine is: when it snows, instead of brushing the snow off your windows the way people with brains do, you make a little porthole, roughly eight inches in diameter. You leave the rest of the windshield covered and pretend you are looking through a periscope. Submarine is a fun game to play, kind of like bumper cars, but it is recommend that you only do this if you have inherited millions of dollars and do not care about your insurance rates.

When this driver challenged me to play Submarine with him, I thwarted him by firing an anti-submarine laser, which is done by slamming your hand on the horn for at least 17 seconds and then making an obscene gesture as you pass the enemy. I continued on my journey to my office. Twenty minutes later, I became an unwitting participant in another fun game called "Tightrope."

Here is how you play Tightrope: First, when it snows, you get a Seattle Metro bus. As you drive your bus, you pretend the yellow line down the center of the road, usually intended to protect oncoming cars from having head-on catastrophes, is actually a tightrope which you must carefully straddle so you don't fall off. What makes Tightrope especially exciting is there are pesky oncoming cars being driven by people like me who are attempting to drive to work in the boring part of the road, which is called a "lane." The object of the game is to keep your bus straddled over the center line, which causes the pesky cars to do something called "swerve." If they end up in the "ditch," you score ten points and get to laugh hysterically. However, if they hit you, you lose your job, so you must decide whether to stay in the middle of the road or "swerve" into your "lane" at the last minute.

I made it to work that day in 1996, only to find my office closed. I have lived through two more major Seattle storms, totalling almost an inch of snow, since then.

Last weekend's blizzard was so serious that streets in some parts of town were WET! I mean, they were so wet that some people actually had accidents when they drove really fast within four feet of each other's bumpers and slammed on their brakes.

Experts recommend that when it is snowing, you should not drive within four feet of the car in front of you or slam on your brakes. Instead, you should maintain a "safe following distance." As a public service to the citizens of Seattle who are not well versed in winter driving techniques, here is how to determine a safe following distance in a snowstorm:

1) Multiply your speed by the number of inches of snow that have fallen.

2) Subtract the number of minutes you are late for work.

3) When there are no cars in front of you, especially mine, lightly tap your brakes and attempt to slow down. If, when doing so, you begin to skid, you are going too fast. Pull off to the side of the road and wait there until April.