Snaux

Snow is what people further north of us get...it is white stuff that falls from the sky, sometimes accumulates on the ground, may make driving a bit of a pain, but is generally accepted as a normal part of winter.

Snaux, on the other hand, is what Kentucky gets. You could, of course, call it "fake snow", but snaux sounds so much less provencial, n'est ce pas?

Snaux isn't so much an actual material, as a state of mind. Snaux is the prediction of white stuff that falls from the sky and and the threat that it may accumulate on the ground. While it does little or nothing to the roads themselves, it works some strange magic to convince otherwise (relatively) rational people that they will DIE A HORRIBLE DEATH if they dare venture behind the wheel. Snaux makes roads impassable, if only in peoples' minds...shuts down entire school systems and causes people to empty grocery store shelves so that they don't have to eat their own dead when they are trapped in their houses for the next...24 hours.

As I speak, we are in a Snaux Emergency. All schools let out early (despite that fact that what was falling from the sky was, in actually, rain). Everything is cancelled for tomorrow*, and the newspeople were actively encouraging people to FREAK OUT. Scary numbers like "up to 10 inches" are being bandied about, along with "worst winter storm in years". You would think the world was ended.

Except, of course, that we have yet to see any actual SNOW. Rain, yes. Freezing rain, yes, a bit. Sleet, yeah, currently falling from the sky, but husband still intends to run 10 miles in it so it can't be that bad. But snow? Not so much.

I'd actually LOVE to see 10 inches of snow...we haven' t had a serious snowfall like that in probably a decade, and I'm sure the kidlet thinks that we are lying when we talk about it being possible to build snowmen taller than 3 inches tall. But they can keep this snaux bullshit all to themselves.

*Everything except, of course, the parent clean-up day at school. Which I feel quite certain will be called off if there actually is any real white stuff, but which they aren't willing to call off tonight. Which, I suppose I should admire...except it means I have to get up at 7:00 am on a Saturday morning to get the freaking email to confirm the Snaux Day.