Snowmageddon

   According to the calendar, winter’s been here since December 21 but you’d never know it by the weather. Today is January 11 and the thermometer got up to 53 degrees. That’s more like March or April around here.
   The news this morning was all about dire warnings of the winter storm to come: three to six inches of snow over twenty-four hours. Oh my God  Better get to the grocery store and clear the shelves. It’s gonna be a long winter siege. Schools will close, businesses will be shuttered, and we’ll never see the light of day again.
   Now, just hold on a minute  If you live in Florida or Tennessee, six inches of snow in twenty-four hours is a lot. Down there, six inches in a month is huge. This is Chicago. Six inches in that time period is only a quarter inch per hour. You could go out there with a broom every hour and sweep away a snowfall like that if a few minutes. Remember the big snow last February? Good. That means you survived that one and you’ll survive this.
   Still the taking heads yammer on. “It’s coming. We’re all gonna die,” they maintain.
   You wanna know who’s gonna die? In addition to those people who insist on going out to shovel when they know they shouldn’t, it’s SUV drivers.
   This is not a blanket indictment of anyone who owns an SUV, just those ego-inflated mopes who buy Hummers, Escalades, and Durangos, etc. with the wrong-headed notion that their vehicles bestow a cloak of invincibility upon them. Sure, their high ground clearance and four-wheel drive transports can get through snowdrifts that mere cars can’t even attempt. But there’s one fatal flaw. They have the same weakness that every four-wheeled vehicle has: tires. Every car, pickup truck, and SUV has only two square feet of rubber that keeps it in contact with the asphalt, gravel, snow, or ice under it.
   We mortals who dare to take to the highway in our puny cars realize the limitations winter driving sets for us and drive accordingly. Some SUV drivers think their vehicles grant them some dispensation from the laws of physics as they apply to highway traction. They drive in the snow like it’s summer outside.
   They’re the ones who will die in this winter storm, their vehicles wrapped around trees or rolled over in ditches. If they don’t take any of us with them, it will do the gene pool some good.