Washington and Being Snowed Under

‘Snowed Under” is a familiar excuse we all use to say ‘We are Sooooo busy.’ But this past week in Washington DC, we are indeed “snowed under” and it means the very opposite. Unless we are driving a snow plough or salting the roads, we aren’t necessarily busy at all, not with our usual routine at least. Most of us are confined to quarters, rugging up for the next blizzard.

For a city so used to a daily frenzy of 2 million commuters, the streets are eerily quiet, undisturbed by Metro buses or normal traffic. It has that “The Day After” ( the Bomb’) feel that would startle a visitor-’What happened? Where did everyone go?’ Was it an earthquake? Another terrorist attack?

Last sabbath the white stuff fell like manna and it didn’t stop. The poor old trees were so snowed over that many fell onto wires. The inevitable power outages rippled through the county and 250,000 plus lost power. We were lucky only losing power for 10 hours because  some are still waiting in the dark. The radio was urging us to call the power company to report outages. When you dialed 1, and then 3, and then 2 to hear it in English,  the message was reassuring “Our brave workers are on the job day and night.” Great.  But then the words trailed off, telling us ‘This might well be a ‘multi-day event.’  Whoa! A what event? Then it finished with a brilliant example of non-directive counseling ’suggesting that “these  circumstances might make it important for  perhaps some users to adjust their plans accordingly.”

Presumably what they meant was- ‘it might still be snowing on Monday, OK?’ and ‘ that if you were on a kidney machine or severely pregnant, then HELLO! you had better hatch a back up plan when the roads got blocked or power went out.’ But that would be way too direct for Washington where in the year of Obama,  we have got so used to strategic indirection. I called back three later times and got the exact same message. No updates, no estimates of repair time. It’s as if the power company had recorded one vague message to last two weeks before they all skipped town to the Caribbean.

As a recovering English teacher, the language breakdown disturbed me even more than the snow or the cold. I had never heard anything being called a “multi-day event” before. We have multi-vitamin capsules and multi-grain bread, and that means they have lots of vitamins in the one pill, and lots of grains in the one loaf. Maybe they meant that ten hours without power is going to feel like  three days. But if it wasn’t bad enough to lose  power, why make it worse by robbing language of its power to deal with it?

Our best companion during the snow siege was my battery operated radio. In fact, what I now call my multi-battery radio. I had it on the local all-day news station and it was like having someone to talk to while I shivered in the dark. Every five minutes, they were warning kids NOT to be walking on the uncleared sidewalks, telling students NOT to be throwing snow balls around Dupont Circle, telling drivers NOT to be driving the wrong way over Key bridge. To all snow shovellers, they said, ‘Be sure, you  bend the knees.’  It felt like coming home from college and being yelled at by Mom for leaving your socks on the floor and feeling reassured. It was Warm and Fuzzy Worry Wort Radio. As they used to say about the Pope raising the Cardinal’s  urinals 6 inches to keep them on their toes,, the radio kept us on ours.

The other strange phenomenon about snow storms is that it brings out the primal ape in us guys. We get out there, rolled up and rugged like fat polar bears, our shovels aloft. We know that if we shift two inches of snow now, its not going to make the slightest difference when 6 more inches fall and it all turns to ice. But we were not meant to sit and mope, we are men of action. Snow awakens some ancient bonding ritual.  In our reptilian brains, if  Sun means go bask in it, Snow means get frisky in it.  We have to do something and at least it keeps us warm.

All my neighbors were out there so I joined them, though embarasingly shovel-less and armed only with my pathetic 6 inch plastic dustpan. Two young lads across the road must have seen me and felt a boy scout’s duty to help this old codger. They kindly shoveled my driveway out. One was from Gonzaga and plays on the football team; the other from SIdwell Friends and goes to school with the Obama girls.  It could be described as a multi-student encounter, I guess,  and I am grateful to  Jesuits and Quakers apiece.

Now we are hunkered down again. The snow has become a multi-multi- day event, this being Tuesday and the last fall being Sunday. Schools are closed. Universities are closed. Even the Government is closed. What the Republicans have worked for all year has finally been achieved  by Snowmageddon 2010.  I haven’t seen any flakes yet, but I did go multi-item shopping ( now I am getting the hang of this)  to get more wine and chips. The  bare essentials, I know.

If you call, or if you are waiting in London or Paris, Belfast or Brisbane for that contract to be returned, we will tell you that we are snowed under, and we really mean it. Our multi-day event continues, and we are adjusting our plans accordingly, and in the background, our ‘over the Top’ radio is still telling drivers “TURN those headlights on! NOW!”

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