'Snow it's true

Well, the snow came down.

All 4 inches of it.

Yes, you read that right. I know you all know I live in Wisconsin, and sure, parts of the state are buried in the white stuff. My folks in Illinois are digging out too. But me? Eh.

Here's the thing I'm loving about Snowpocalypse. Or Snowmaggedon. Or, my favorite, the Snowtorius B.I.G. We usually get EVERY snowstorm in the state. It's like the weather systems like to find my backyard on doppler radar and aim for it.

Four inches may sound like a lot to you. My friends D and N got 18. My mom has about 20 and my dad about 22. I saw pictures. I heard stories. It was all over my Facebook feed. And aside from the fun pictures of the make-shift frosty block parties, I wasn't all that impressed.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold the hate mail. I know none of you were impressed by it either. It looked like a ginormous pain in the rear. And it's not everyday major cities are completely shut down by weather.

I live in Wisconsin. We've had snow like that. I don't remember specific years because it seems to happen every year. The year Larry Potter was in kindergarten, we got over 100 inches of snow that winter and blew out weather records. That winter, there wasn't one week of school that didn't have a snow day declared between Christmas vacation and Spring Break.

"All right boys, just aim for the backyard with all the kids toys!"

My attitude might come from the responses I get when I complain about snow. They are mostly "You live in Wisconsin, what did you expect?!" And it's true. Which is why I don't complain much about it anymore, and why it makes me bite my tongue when I hear people complain in the Walmart line.

But I'm turning the other cheek. I'm happy for my snowdrifter friends. Everyone got the day off Wednesday. I got to catch up with a lot of people at home, mainly because, well, they were at home. Pictures of kids in snowsuits sliding down 8 foot piles made me smile. My kids stayed inside because they are pretty much over the snow.

Okay, it might be a little schadenfreude. But much like Wisconsinites feel about Buffalo, NY ("Hey, we may have snow, but at least we don't have as much as Buffalo!"), I'm pretty sure the rest of the country (besides Buffalo) feels about Wisconsin.

(My friend Stephen came to Wisconsin once in February for Hoover's baptism. It was record setting cold and I brought him a coat when I picked him up at the airport. He refuses to ever come back here unless it's during June, July, or August. And I think he's still in therapy over the windchill. He lives in Alabama now, mainly so he doesn't ever have to experience the term "windchill" again.)

So, to all my snowbound friends, you know I'm on your side when I say that snow is only pretty if you don't have to go anywhere. That, and it builds character to shovel for four hours. And to the National Weather Service, thanks for telling this system to skip my house this year.