The following was written Friday and Saturday while I was embedded in what has come to be called the second “snowpocalypse” of the season. The trees outside my door are bent with snow, almost touching the feet of powder on the ground. The sky and the earth are reaching for each other, and we are caught somewhere in between.
– At the grocery store Thursday night, the checkout line stretches well into the frozen food aisle. People are stocking up on the essentials. Everyone is buying alcohol.
– When the magnitude of the storm becomes evident, there will be an urge to do all the drugs in the house at the same time, from Schedule 1 drugs to 80-proof alcohol. This is why there is so much meth in Alaska.
– A snowpocalypse is defined as a snow storm so intense it breaks down normal patterns of social interaction, paralyzing the state’s ability to protect or enforce. As an adjective, it is written “snowpocalyptic.”
– It is not as cold out as one might imagine when looking through the non-snow-covered upper half of a window. Except for the wind; the wind is very cold.
– I’m from California where this shit does not happen.
– Other groups of people walking during a snowpocalypse should be assumed hostile until proven otherwise. It is best to strike first, and those venturing outside would do well to carry a few pre-packed snowballs in the case of snow-hooligan attacks. One can never be too careful.
– Snowpocalypse poses questions of responsibility. A world without police is also a world without ambulances.
– Twenty-first-century hippies lose their cell phones frolicking in the snow. This is essentially what is wrong with 21st-century hippies.
– Having grown up in California, I associate snow with Christmas. Snowpocalypse is snow beyond Christmas.
– Route 1 is comfortingly alive Saturday night even though the only places open are bars and places to eat after going to bars. ATMs are always open, and the people in line hop up and down to stay warm.
– It’s OK to miss planned snowball fights because the ones you get into with small groups of strangers at 3:30 a.m. are far more, dare I say, snowpocalyptic.
– Where do the squirrels go? There are few out, and I have it on good authority they do not hibernate. I’m confident they’re safe.
– There’s only so much fun you can have while traditional forms of transportation are still viable. Snowpocalypse is more fun than that.
– On a scale from Kingston, Jamaica, to postlapsarian Narnia, the snowfall is at trapped-in-a-snow-globe levels.
– The only drivers on the road are civil servants with snowplows and people from snowy climates with something to prove to their loved ones. Central roads should be avoided because both groups are composed mainly of maniacs.
– A family friend who grew up in Alaska once told me that her home state doesn’t share Scandinavia’s suicide rate because Alaskans find heavy drinking socially acceptable. She considers herself a functional alcoholic; I don’t think she knows about the meth.
– A man in an SUV slows down and sticks his head out the window and asks, “You want a beer?”
He tosses a can out the window before driving away, and I drink it the rest of the way home.
Malcolm Harris is a senior English and government and politics major. He can be reached at harris at umdbk dot com.