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BUT FIRST, BEFORE WE BEGIN DEP'T. Before the next chapter drops Friday, get caught up on THE STAIRS, Tom Scocca's serialized work of fiction! COLUMN DEP’T. MR WRONG: Big Snow Is a Big Treat If You Don't Let It Kill You THE MR WRONG column is headquartered on the Eastern Seaboard of what is still The United States of America, which is currently, if you pay attention to the Mainstream Weather Media, due for a giant pile of precipitation in the form of snow. Blizzard-levels of snow, gale-force winds, all that stuff, which, here in Baltimore, MD, has not happened for like 10 years. This means there are bunches and bunches of idiots out there who have forgotten or never experienced serious death-dealing Weather that comes in the form of fluffy beautiful snow, no two flakes the same, but if you are a dum-dum, they all want to kill you!  Sometimes you need a weather forecast to tell which way the wind blows! People on the teevee news are gonna start saying “snow-mageddon” and “snow-paclypse” and I just saw "snowtastrophe," that doesn’t help anything. It also doesn’t help to name snowstorms human names! That’s just for Hurricanes, because there are so many of them! Can’t we have anything be special for itself? You get one or two big snow dumps a season, don’t name that shit, they get the year attached, like this one would be “Blizzard of ’26,” that’s appropriate!  Look at all the Weather! A Government thing that still works! Many people here in my city of Baltimore are going to lose their fucking minds. Some of them are going to go out to the grocery stores tonight and tomorrow and clear the shelves of bread-milk-toilet paper. Others will drive their cars in ass-deep snow and get stuck immediately. Still others are going to drive their special four-wheel vehicles out on the highways and lose control of all of their wheels and end up with their wonderful SUV upside-downy and backwards in a ditch. People think all the stuff does not apply to them, you know? When it snows a lot and you hear somebody say “hello, there is Weather, it’s not good, don’t go out unless it is absolutely necessary,” they always hear that and decide that whatever stupid shit they want to do is absolutely necessary! If you have to drive in the snow, like, if you gotta go to the hospital, or something on that level, put your blinkers on and keep it in second gear! Forty mph out on the highway, tops, or you will fucking spin out the first time you panic-brake and your wheels lock up and you start sliding, and you end up on the side of the road like all the Jeeps and stuff. Me, I am gonna stay home in my castle. During the storm I might do some preliminary sidewalk-clearing, but if it’s blizzarding out there, no fucking way! Back inside!  Look at this shit! It stopped snowing but are you kidding me? That mess ain’t going nowhere, no hurry to go out and get a heart attack! I think that was my car, right out front. The last time we had a monster snow dump, I shoveled out the cooler on the back deck, and my wife and I had a Snow Day and watched a crappy movie called 50 Shades of Grey, which is supposed to be a sexy movie, with intrigue and stuff, and a horny billionaire—this was before we realized billionaires are terrible—but it’s super dopey and funny not-on-purpose.  Subtle! 50 Shades of Grey (2015), rated R I can’t complain about the acting in it, because they had to say a lot of stupid shit, it’s not the actor’s fault it’s a lame movie. We watched it and I goofed on it on Twitter, good times, this is 10 years ago when we had Twitter! It was fun. What happened to our fun stuff?  Scenes from watching 50 Shades of Grey, the Blizzard of '16, and our cat deciding it didn't want to go out on the deck. Anyway, it was fun, to be inside with no expectation to go anywhere, because you couldn’t! I will go outside after it stops snowing, and I will assess the situation and consider shoveling my sidewalk, but if I’m asshole-deep in that white stuff, I’m going back inside! I have The Misery in my back and I’m not gonna blow it out being the first fool to clear the sidewalk!  Après blizzard, 2016. Again, I think that was my car, near the shovel handle. It's all a white blur! I like to go out on foot after there’s a giant snow event and walk around while errbody is digging out, especially if there’s a sunny sky, it’s invigorating! Everything is an adventure! Look how many clothes we hadda put on! Let’s walk to a bar!  This was the storm in progress, people were smart and stayed outta their cars! Last time, we did exactly that, walked down the middle of the street to the alcoholic bar, you know, the 6 a.m.–2 a.m. bar that serves a certain clientele, and we had the whole place to ourselves, it was a blast. Snow Day! If you experience this Weather event, I hope it is a healing and restful moment for you, some stolen time! I hope you will be safe, don’t get a heart attack, stay out of a car until you can see the pavement on the road. It won’t last forever, things will get better, I can feel it.  Door to the deck open on the giant snowdrift I had to shovel through.  I made it! The MR. WRONG COLUMN is a general-interest column appearing weekly. No refunds. Write Wrong: wrongcolumn@gmail.com. EASY LISTENING DEP'T.Here is the Indignity Morning Podcast archive! SANDWICH RECIPES DEP'T.WE PRESENT INSTRUCTIONS for the assembly of sandwiches selected from Cassell's New Dictionary of Cookery, published in 1912 by Cassell and Company, London, New York, Toronto, and Melbourne, and available at archive.org for the delectation of all. UNION SANDWICHES. Use a round tinned loaf for these. Spread a third of the number of slices with potted veal, another third with anchovy paste, and the remainder with mustard and cress and chopped capers; season the whole with pepper and a very little salt. Make the sandwiches by putting the slices with anchovy at the bottom, then those with cress, etc., bread side down, then press the veal on to the cress. Cut into triangles and arrange in a ring on a dish covered with a lace paper. A little mayonnaise may be used for garnish, with a few fillets of anchovy. If you are inspired to prepare a sandwich inspired by these offerings, be sure to send your thoughts and a picture to indignity@indignity.net . SELF-SERVING SELF-PROMOTION DEP'T.
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