ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, February 12, 1996 TAG: 9602130067
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A7 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Monty S. Leitch
SOURCE: MONTY S. LEITCH
OVER THE phone, my friend said, ``Please, just don't talk about the weather.''
I said that was fine with me. So I asked her instead, ``What's new?'' I said, ``How have you been?''
She said, ``Well, I guess I'm pretty good, now that the ice in the pipes has broken free. I've just been standing here, watching the water run.'' She tried a weak, little chuckle.
But this topic seemed dangerously close to weather to me, so all I responded was, ``Oh?''
``I suppose I should be thankful there was a foot of snow on the ground when the pipes froze. At least there was snow to melt. And, I suppose I should be thankful we never lost our power, either, so at least I could melt the snow on the stove.''
The chuckle, weak as it had been, completely disappeared from her voice. Now, I detected a strain of genuine bitterness.
``I suppose,'' I carefully answered.
``Do you realize,'' she wailed, not at all weakly, ``how fragile the whole infrastructure is?''
``The infrastructure?'' I asked.
``I lose water for two days - just two days - and my entire household system starts to break apart. Society begins to crumble, right here in my kitchen.''
``All of society?'' I asked. ``Don't you think that's a little extreme?'' (Never mind that, as far as I could see, we were definitely talking about the weather.)
``Remember the ice storms?'' my panicked friend cried. ``Remember the blizzard? A couple of feet of snow, and the grocery store shelves were bare. Bare! If that had gone on for any length of time, we would have starved to death. There would have been riots. Panic in the streets!''
I thought about making those soothing, clucking sounds in my throat; the kind of sounds one uses to calm wailing babies and manic animals. But instead I said, ``I thought you didn't want to talk about the weather.''
``Who's talking about the weather?'' she shot back. ``I'm talking about blackouts, oil shortages, the end of the transportation system as we know it. I'm talking about holes in the upper atmosphere, water pollution, global warming, the nuclear threat!''
``All because your pipes froze up?'' I ventured. ``When was the last time you got out of the house?''
``Every day!'' she shrieked. ``Every day, I've been out of this house! Hauling in snow to melt on the stove so I could wash the dishes, wash my face, flush the toilet! You think I'm crazy, don't you? You think I've got cabin fever!''
``Well,'' I said.
``Just let me tell you,'' she seethed. ``Every day! Every day I've slogged through a foot of snow to the end of the driveway, just so I could get the paper, get the mail, get some little assurance that the rest of the world was out there. And now - now! Now, when everywhere else in the world the snow is melting and people are zipping about in their cars, going to the mall, checking out the new super Wal-Mart, what am I doing? I'm slogging through a foot of slush instead of a foot of snow, and getting to the end of the driveway and finding that the only piece of mail in the box is another, another, another damn seed catalog!''
``Now, now,'' I said. ``The temperature's supposed to rise steadily over the next few days. If winter comes, can spring be far behind?''
``You promised you wouldn't talk about the weather!'' she wailed. ``You promised!''
Then she hung up the phone.
I hear the almanacs are predicting another storm about a week from today. I guess I'd better go over and check on my friend. I guess I'd better remove the sharp objects from her house.
Monty S. Leitch is a Roanoke Times columnist.
LENGTH: Medium: 77 linesby CNB