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Bloggy Blog #13

 In case you haven't noticed or anything, it's winter. How do I know? Because everyone is complaining about it.


Some places are recording record lows all across this land. Here in western North Carolina for example, we had recent overnight wind chills of maybe twenty below zero. It's pretty brutal, and like most stories, aren't legit enough unless they include some ration of death. How many deaths have there been? Depends on where you read, really. Six? Seven? Two-hundred? Which one draws the most shock, and more importantly, more ratings? Throw around some cliches like "...cold enough to take your breath away", or "life-threatening wind chill", and what we have is another painstakingly desperate state of panic. 

The most enjoyable part of this cold chill - I'm sorry, I guess the trendy correct reactionary ratings term for this is Polar Vortex - is not so much mainstream media's orgasmic reaction to it, but by overly-cliche remarks you read on your own social media "news" feeds.

Thanks for enlightening us with your climate plight. Zero people like this. 

And speaking of cold, nothing is more chilling than learning how much of a pretentious asshole others can be. Like the kumquat that tried to get indignant right in front of my parent's apartment. A few years ago, I was cruising into the parking lot of their apartment complex. We were deep into winter - a season that lasts eleven fucking months, it seems - and I was returning from who the hell knows what. A party. Some girl's house. A Burger King drive through. Doesn't matter. Anyway, I get to a point in the lot where I have to curve around a small parking garage toward my parent's place. On the front lawn of the tenants immediately to the right after passing the garage were some apartment complex worker people, doing their thing. Plowing or something. Maybe removing snow. I zip on by them as fast as people normally drive on icy, unplowed roads and into the parking space across from my parent's apartment. I'm sitting in my car, gathering my belongings, when suddenly there's a TAP, TAP, TAP on my driver's side window, scaring the ever loving shit out of me. I peek over and see some guy in a fluorescent safety vest and a poorly-trimmed mustache. Behind me sits the very truck I drove by that was removing snow after I passed the garage earlier. I crack the window down enough so he can't strangle, punch, or maybe try to rob me. 

"Hey can you do me a favor and not speed around the parking lot when we're trying to work here?"

"Uh, yeah, sure. Sorry...?"

"Thanks."

He walks away, into his Chevy S150TXI or something with a plow attached, probably feeling accomplished that he took a stand against people trying to drive in a parking lot. Here's to you, champion of winter justice. 

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