45 Flakes

It snowed here yesterday. The forecast said something like “snow showers,” or such. Yet, the day before there was a full parking lot at a nearby supermarket. You know the American custom: snow predicted, buy enough bread and milk to sustain your family for at least a week.

We got 45 flakes.

Bread and milk. It’s a tradition in this country; when you hear of snow coming, that’s what you buy and you get plenty of it. If you don’t, then you have to wait until (a) later in the day or, worst-case theory, (b) the next morning. The roads will be cleared by either (a) or (b) and you can head for the slopes for hours of skiing.

The ski areas here are making snow this season; we haven’t had much at all. I wonder, if it’s a year when the foliage is not plentiful, if the folks in New England make leaves. You can do it with snow, why not with them? You just get the leaf-making machine cranked up and in just a few hours you have the ground covered with them. After all, what is Fall without falling leaves?

What we feel will be inevitable is the snow machine. Sooner or later, it will start up, and not on the slopes. One of these days, Mother Nature will flip the switch and we will know what it’s like to be an ant when the bare ski areas start getting covered artificially. In our case, it will be straight down from the sky. I couldn’t even guess how many flakes.