How's the.....

There is a popular topic of conversation. It seems like everyone has something to say about it. I rarely initiate conversation about this topic and generally only participate in the chatter if I’m asked a direct question. The rest of the time I alternate between chuckling and rolling my eyes.

What is this topic?

The weather.

Today I break my silence to write 500+ words on the subject.

I live in central Illinois and it is January. So you might guess that we have cold temperatures and some snow. And you would be correct. So why does it seem like most people are surprised by the cold and the snow? Sure, we’ve had some extra cold days….something about a polar vortex? But mostly it’s just January in central Illinois.

Just today, I was sitting in the break room eating my fabulously delicious tomato rotini soup when two coworkers pop in. He comes over by the windows where I was sitting and exclaims, “It’s …. snowing!?” I will let you fill in the appropriate four letter word. Now the windows span the entire length of the break room and I was sitting about 2 feet from them but I hadn’t even noticed it was snowing, even though I had been staring out the window for some time. Then my coworkers spend the next five minutes talking to each other about how ridiculous the weather is and comparing travel stories from the previous days’ commute. These are 40-50 year old men who have spent their entire lives in central Illinois. Why would today’s flurries be cause for such an uproar? I’m not sure that I’ll ever understand. Most days I just chuckle and let the conversation swirl around me, kinda like those flurries. Today I’m super tired so I confess that I might have rolled my eyes a little bit because I just don’t get it.

It’s not that I don’t care about the weather but it just doesn’t enthrall me like it does for others. Take for instance, my mom. (Side note: my mom is a loyal reader of this blog so I must preface this by saying that I love my mom dearly and this is in no way meant to be disrespectful. It’s just an example.)

Every time I call my mom, I get a detailed weather report for Hackensack, MN. She loves paying attention to the weather. She’ll stay up late even when she’s tired so she can catch the weather report on the news. I have joked with her that she should have become a meteorologist because she’s so fascinated by it. I don’t think she wanted to be wrong so much of the time so she chose a different line of work.

Me on the other hand….I don’t even look outside when I’m deciding how to dress. It’s winter so I dress in layers. If it happens to be a warmer day, I’ll just shed a layer. It works for me.

But probably the hardest thing for me to ignore is the comments about the snow. Whenever it starts snowing (Sunday night, for instance), my Facebook news feed blows up with people upset about the snow and wanting winter to be over already. This is when I get some serious eye rolling going. And occasionally, I slip in a comment about how I love the snow or how beautiful it is. Because I do. And it is.

And now to be honest, I have been diligently checking this weekend’s weather for the past week. I’m traveling south for work and am paranoid about driving in snow. It might be beautiful and I might love it but I DO NOT love to drive in it.

And I’m done. That’s more than enough words on a subject that usually renders me speechless.

(634 words)