SLIGHTLY OFF THE
MARK
Well, it didn’t work this time. My
system didn’t work, and as a result, the Blizzard of ’14 was all my fault.
I know what you’re thinking: “Mark,
can you be so egotistical as to brag that you affected the weather?”
People, it’s not bragging when it’s
a bad thing. It would be like somebody bragging that they take drugs and commit
crimes. Maybe that was a bad example, considering it’s not unheard of for
people in Hollywood to commit Charlie Sheenisms.
If I claim to have brought on spring
singlehandedly with my mind, then you can stage an intervention. Meanwhile, the
fact remains that the Blizzard of ’14 was directly caused by Hunter’s Law of
Inverse Lousy Predictions Squared.
As far as I know it wasn’t
technically a blizzard where I live, by the way, although it was declared that
one county to the west. “Blizzard” just sounds cooler than “snowstorm”, in the
same way “tornado” sounds cooler than “straight line winds”. There’s something
oddly human about insisting you have the worst weather, which I guess is kind of bragging about bad things.
“You may have a few drifts, but our
blizzard buried semis! By the way, my gallstone was way bigger than your
gallstone and my boss is way meaner than yours. And our snow is colder.”
Anyway, for the last ten years or so
I’ve been predicting a bad winter. Not for this year – for all those years,
every year. “It’s gonna be a bad one this year,” I’d say. “I feel it in my
gut.”
And every year, that feeling in my
gut turned out to be from gorging myself every December on Lions Club citrus.
We kept having mild winters,
instead. (“Mild” sometimes meant ice instead of snow. It’s all relative.) This
is because of Hunter’s Law of Predictions, which states, “Mark Hunter isn’t
very good at making predictions.” It’s a simple rule.
And I was happy with that, because,
as all 14 of my regular readers know, I hate winter. I hate winter so much that
I’m only going to live around here in the summertime after I’m rich, which
should happen any second now. So every year I said “This is the year they’re
going to name “The Godzilla of Winters”, and every year I was wrong. (The
Godzilla of Winters breathes sub-zero snow, instead of fire. Also, he slides
over Tokyo with giant ice skates.)
But I forgot the flipside, Hunter’s
Law of Inverse Lousy Predictions, which reads:
“Whenever Mark Hunter is right about a prediction, it’s something
bad.”
For instance, I correctly predicted the most
recent economic recession. I correctly predicted that China was going to start
flexing its military muscles and mess with its neighbors. I correctly predicted
that my lawnmower would either not start in the spring or break in early summer
… every year since 1988.
To make matters worse, there’s also
Hunter’s Law of Inverse Lousy Predictions Squared.
HLILPS, which is pronounced “Hlilips”, clearly states: “If Mark Hunter makes a
prediction because he wants to be
wrong, sooner or later he will be right”.
It gets complicated. The weather example
is that I predict weather from the tenth level of Hell (which is where they
keep the deep freezes, ice cream supplies, and politicians with frozen hearts).
The original law – Lousy Predictions – kicks in, and so we have (relatively)
nice weather.
But then, sooner or later, someone or
something figures out I’m messing with them. Karma, Murphy, Mother Nature, Al
Gore, whatever. Then the Law’s inversely square part kicks in, and I’m left
holding the bag. By which I mean, I’m left holding the snow shovel.
It’s
a given, at that point, that I’ll be suffering from my chronic back
pain, sinus infection, and tendonitis just when the driveway is yelling “shovel
me!” I’ll remember that my boots aren’t insulated, my gloves are too thin, and
that even at 5 degrees I can sweat under my long underwear, a situation that
ironically can lead to hypothermia.
I’ll also be reminded that there are a
lot of great people out there, personified by whoever used a snow blower on my
sidewalk after our first storm, and whoever else has been running a snow plow
through my driveway after every snowfall so far this season.
Much as I still hate winter, that kind
of thing makes me feel a lot better.
And who could have predicted that?
So this is all YOUR fault??? Arrrrggghhhh!
ReplyDelete"The Godzilla of Winters?" Now that's cool!
And it just keeps tromping around ....
DeleteThe Godzilla of all winters is a very good description!
ReplyDeleteWe're having ourselves an old fashioned winter. With polar vortexes.
I protest your use of the word "good".
DeleteNaw, just blame it on Global Warming. Much simpler. If winter becomes too much I recommend the desert. Twentynine Palms is a great place to live or visit.
ReplyDeleteBut if this is global warming, shouldn't your neighborhood be melting away any minute now?
DeleteAnd I thought it was all my moaning about how I live in the wrong state that brought all this on...
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, our blizzard crapped out on us and went north, so I still had to go to work today. If it's gonna be crappy, it needs to be crappy enough to keep me home from work. ;)
I agree completely -- give us an excuse not to go outside!
DeleteRemind me to never have you predict something about me. Charlie Sheenisms? hahahahaha - good one.
ReplyDeleteHopefully Charlie will never track me down!
Delete