Snow, you know about it by reading all the social networking sites before the first icy flake has even hit the floor. Every tweet and facebook status informs you of its arrival, just to let you know in case you do not possess a window. Everyone puts the same crappy pictures up online, you know the ones of snow angels, a white road or garden or worse a snowman. That’s right, because we don’t already know from the numerous warnings on the news and weather reports.
I never understand the yearly anticipation and excitement about it. Inevitably the two inches of slush we end up with never really lives up to the expectation anyway. As soon as that first drop settles on the floor London turns in to chaos. Trains stop working, busses are scarce, and warnings about driving around on ice ridden roads are never ending. People go crazy, it’s like an apocalypse every time. You would think we would have gotten used to it by now.
I mean it’s not like this isn’t a yearly comeuppance and we never get epic proportions do we? Heaven forbid we got a Canadian amount of snow, all hell would break loose. How do they deal with it? Life doesn’t just stop there does it? People don’t just give up and decide they can’t get in to work, schools don’t just shut down, cars don’t just crash in to each other on ice ridden roads, traffic jams don’t just happen. No it doesn’t, but it does here! Yet people get all happy about its disastrous return.
I do understand that the roads get icy here, funny how much salt we have stored and it’s never enough. The salt bin at the end of my road is empty within an hour as everyone scrambles to salt their front paths in case some falls and sews them. Because, you know, it’s your fault if some moron can’t seem to take care when walking on a slippery surface on your property. It doesn’t matter that they have been walking in the same conditions to get to your house, all of a sudden it is now your fault.
You can tell where that nasty cheap government salt has been thrown because the roads look like...well for better sense of the word, diarrhea. I never understood why their salt is brown. Funnily enough I saw a salt truck the other day. I had never seen one and got quite excited to see what it actually did. That was until I realised, a little too late, that it was hurling towards me at 60 mph, salt aggressively spewing from the back all over the road, cars, motorbikes, cyclists and me. I ended up with diarreah salt down my top, in my mouth and burning the crap out of my eyes as I blindly stumbled away from the monstrosity.
The pandemonium on the streets however, does not stop there. People turn in to animals, it’s like survival of the fittest. Hundreds of people waiting at bus stops and on train platforms, as soon as the mode of transport arrives there’s pushing and shoving to get on. Old men and women shoved aside, zimmer frames and walking sticks flying all over the place while people scramble to the safety of a warm sardine like contraption.
Another thing, you know it’s snowing why are you not dressed for the weather? Did you somehow miss the news, weather reports, window, and status updates? Why are you stood there in a mini skirt, ballet shoes and tiny jacket? It’s no wonder that people freeze to death in this weather walking around scantily clad. Put some tights, boots and at least a blooming jumper on for the love of god.
Snow can be fun though I must admit. Some of my best memories are going out in the snow with friends and family. But those days were different, snow ball fights were between you and your friends. Not you and a bus! The amount of teenagers you see just throwing snow balls at busses now days is rather depressing. Do they not have friends anymore? Or is it just that they have not been educated enough to understand that a bus is an inanimate object? Or maybe they, like the commuters have reverted back to their prehistoric animal instincts with the monkey gene taking over.
Funnily enough I was talking to a friend’s little sister the other day and I was telling her about sleighing on tea trays or anything we could sit and slide on when we were little. She just laughed, and couldn’t believe it and asked why we didn’t ‘just buy a sleigh’. How times have changed, but that’s a whole other rant. The thing is that we don’t do that anymore. Why? Because now we can brake bones but still every year the A&E is full of idiots who have broken bones through snow stupidity.
Will everyone just stop getting so caught up in frozen rain, take care and just use their brain cells?
No comments:
Post a Comment