Snow is now probably the only form of white supremacy widely regarded to be a good thing. In fact, as you are no doubt aware, snow is both 'epic' and 'awesome'. It may cause some minor inconvenience if you are a victim of progress, and are required to travel further than walking distance to work, or indulge in absurd luxuries like actually goddamn flying to other countries just to have a nice time. Back when farmers and manual labourers still existed, it was probably a nuisance to them too. Yet these factors pale into insignificance when weighed against the white stuff's epicness and awesomeness.
As you may be aware, it has been snowing here. Snow come get up in y'all business, if you know what I mean. It is also an exciting opportunity for jenuwyne Merricuns to drive around in trucks, ploughing the snow into big piles, while their Hispanic and Sub-continental serfs toil with shovels clearing the paths and steps around apartment complexes. This only after said serfs have willfully wasted precious time, digging their way out of their hovels in the sticks so that they can be driven to where the rich need them. Unions will be the death of this once great nation. If the paths and steps aren't clear, how can decent folk get out to frolic in the snow with their children and pets?
Some renters and homeowners don't have teams of workers to do simple chores for them and are faced with the indignity of actually spending time clearing their own properties. However, on encountering such adversity the truly courageous will rise to the occasion, using their traditionally superfluous SUV to propel themselves straight over the snow in the drive and all the way to the gym. One simply can't afford to let clearing snow get in the way of that all important morning workout.
It doesn't snow all that often in this part of Freedom, so the last few months have come as something of a shock to many. Thankfully, the necessary precautions and behaviour relevant to such vagaries of the atmosphere are hard coded at the genetic level. Locals react instinctively and promptly to any news of snow, by descending on grocery stores to buy all the eggs and milk they can carry. Without dairy, can a nation truly call itself civilised?
Through the naive eyes of an external observer it might seem that purchasing candles and matches would be more pertinent, as one can guarantee the electricity will go out at some point, a consequence of the artful juxtaposition of low slung provincial power lines and trees weakened by ice and snow. However the native has learnt to see very well by the light of a radionuclide rich omelette. Three Mile Island just keeps paying dividends.
Though the ruling junta cancelled classes and told 'non-essential' staff to stay at home the day before the snow came, they were loathe to interfere with the University's primary mission, namely, holding sporting events. So it was that I found myself attending a free basketball game, as a stand-in for real fans afflicted by weather related travel difficulties. Undoubtedly at some point there was a game played by absurdly tall men with a ball, but this was but a sideshow compared to the overall spectacle with its dancing girls; booing and cat calls in the finest traditions of sportsmanship; cannons for firing free t-shirts into the upper stands; halftime diaper derby; multiple spectator competitions to win ipods; juggling seals and singing bears. An honourable mention must go to the smoochcam, picking mixed gender couples to display on the big screen and pressuring them to kiss, therefore enforcing the ideals of the heteroarchy.
Further delight was to be found in the student managers. Resplendent in their team polos and slacks they swing into action like a well oiled, or at least greasy, machine at each of the innumerable timeouts, bringing towels and folding chairs for the players to sit on while the actual managers rush to the centre of the court, because that is the only place where tactics may meaningfully be discussed. Once the timeout is over the student managers pack up the chairs, suck the towels dry and return to their important task of checking that the gatorade is stored under optimal conditions.
In the afternoon of that day I went sledging (or sledding if you have trouble with difficult words, like 'aluminium' or 'burgled') in the nearest park with a decent hill. On the way we joined a column of students marching in the same direction. Amongst the usual characters in their combination of pyjamas and expensive snowboard gear were, somewhat surprisingly, Elmo and Ernie.
Sledging is difficult when you don't have a sledge, and we watched the fortunate few enviously while making do by using empty beer boxes, or wearing large plastic bags in a manner similar to over-sized incontinence briefs. Things improved significantly when a friend of a friend of a friend turned up with the box from a plasma screen tv. After some important structural work with duct tape, we were tearing down the slopes in an environmentally friendly manner. On one descent, I and my co-passenger managed to deal withering blows to two slow-moving undergraduates with our hiking boots. So snow isn't really all bad then.
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