In all fairness to what you are about to read, in the last 36 hours I have seen types of precipitation that were altogether new to me (i.e. what I am calling sleet-hail, which is a baffling combination of the two, but somehow more like having someone dump a bucket of slush on you from an advanced height).
So, yesterday morning I wore some nice leather dress shoes to work, which along with the suit I was wearing, made me a little over-dressed for my office. On the other hand, I felt like it was appropriate for having breakfast and having my picture taken with Sen. Franken (which was very cool). Well it turns out that was the least appropriate footwear for the day that I could have chosen. I should have realized that morning, when it was raining, that perhaps leather shoes would not be the most practical, but I could not be bothered. I'm from Minnesota, after all, home of winter weather.
It continued to precipitate, more or less constantly, throughout the day with the temperature dropping all the while. By the time I left work things had turned a little messy. The rain/sleet/snow transition had occurred - which equated to DC's streets turning into parking lots full of tired, aggravated people all trying to get home. One of my friends told me about a co-worker whose 45min commute turned into an 8 hour commute last night. Ridiculous! Work was delayed two hours this morning on account of all the snow.
Now, I don't particularly mean to be judgmental, but it happens from time to time. Seriously though. This is the Capitol of the country and it snows pretty much every winter here (not a lot, but you know, at least once). You'd think people would react with some amount of practicality and levelheadedness to what is a fairly routine fact of nature. Not so. People lost their flipping minds. Maybe this is just my Minnesotan wintry elitism, but people, it was approximately four inches of snow. Tops. A wet, gross snow, to be fair. But it's not like you literally couldn't drive, that's just user error.
A bunch of people lost power too, which is somewhat understandable given the nature/moisture content of the snow. But my friend who I had drinks with this evening said the power company told him they hoped to have power back up to everyone by the 30th. Let us pause. The 30th??!?!?!! It's now the 27th. Yes, by all means that seems totally reasonable...what? By way of explanation, the power company said there were some repair delays caused by no being able to get their trucks down some of the roads. Okay, that might be plausible if there were say...2 feet of snow. But four inches (again, I'm being generous)? Here's my solution: just go ahead and drive down that snowy road. Unless the repair truck also happens to be a fancy European sports car, it seems like the clearance is more than equal to the task. But that's just me.
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