It's a tough day to be a Prophet of Doom

Apocalypse Maybe Week concludes today, one way or the other, here at Second Effort....

Actually, a sharp difference of opinion has already arisen among the doomsday prophets: Some say we've skated past the Mayan deadline since it is, clearly, already December 21 in Mexico and Central America and we're all still here. On the other hand, there are those who are still holding out hope (?) that the Apocalypse might come later today -- it will be on time as long as it gets here before December 22 starts.

That's the problem with these prophesies of doom: They are so imprecise.

We're dealing with that on a smaller scale here in Chicago this morning.

Yesterday, a Killer Blizzard was finally taking aim at Chicago (we'd been nearly 300 days without measurable snow, a new record) and all the TV stations were positively giddy with excitement. You think kids get excited at the first snow? TV newsrooms go positively bonkers, dispatching reporters to hardware stores (to monitor shovel and snow blower sales), and expressway overpasses (to show the traffic hopelessly tangled in the snow), and (of course) the airports (so they can exploit the frustrations of the stranded travelers).

It rained in Chicago yesterday. It rained a lot. The roof in our den appears to have sprung a brand new leak (interestingly, the roof didn't leak in any of old places -- just this one new one). But it did not snow, not for hours after the official 3:00 p.m. start of the Winter Storm Warning.

That's not to say that parts of the Midwest did not get clobbered yesterday. Madison, Wisconsin got a foot and a half of snow. Youngest Son was quite upset to be home in Chicago while South Janesville College was finally seeing its first significant snowfall. ("It didn't snow up there at all last winter," he complained. I'm sure he's exaggerating -- but it was an unusually warm, snow-free winter in Chicago last year. I told him to wait. It will probably snow plenty during his short spring baseball season. He was not amused.)

Finally, just in time for the late evening newscasts, the rain began to turn to snow in the Chicago area. The TV stations were much relieved. What would they have had to talk about if the snow didn't arrive? The stalemate in Washington? Who cares about that?

There's a bare dusting of snow on my lawn this morning. The sidewalk needs no shoveling. And the world hasn't ended, at least not yet.

It's a tough day to be a Prophet of Doom.