There's No Business Like Snow Business

One thing about living on this planet that I'll never get used to is snow. The very idea of snow, first of all. The fact that it gets so cold that water in the sky actually floats down instead of falling down and then piles up and covers everything instead of running off everything and going away may be nothing to regular Earthlings but it's still a pretty weird deal to me. So, the fact that snow exists in the first place is the first thing I'll never get used to.

Hey, I'm sorry if this opening doesn't grab you but you'd almost have to be from another planet in a previous life, like I was, in order to understand how ridiculous it is to live on a planet that's half covered with snow half the time. It's almost as dumb as Earth people living in deserts where there isn't any water and never will be. Places like Northern Africa, the Middle East, the Australian Outback and Las Vegas, Nevada. But, here I go again, getting off the track. I want to talk about how dumb it is to live in places where there's snow on the ground four to six months of the year, not where there's no water all year round.

OK. So, not only is it dumb to live where snow covers the ground anywhere from October to April, it's also costly. Snow might appear to be free but nothing is really free on this planet. Even love and respect are up for sale here. If you can't find them, you can always buy them. But here I go again. I don't want to talk about love and respect, I want to talk about how snow is big business on Earth.

Let's face it, it's cold where it snows on this planet. And, if you want to keep warm, you have to pay for that warmth. Just think of the things a person has to buy in order to keep warm when it snows. Home heating fuel, hats, scarves, winter hats, gloves, mittens, winter coats, boots, heavy socks, ear muffs, pocket warmers, electric socks, attic insulation, weather stripping, door dogs, vodka and the list goes on and on. None of this stuff is free, either.

Then there's snow removal. Snow doesn't go away on its own until it becomes water again and that can take months in the really cold places on planet Earth. So, you gotta get yourself tools for removing that snow. But first, you need to buy things to keep you warm while you're removing all that snow. So, if you don't have them already, you need some hats, scarves, winter hats, gloves, mittens, winter coats, boots, heavy socks, ear muffs, pocket warmers, electric socks and so on and so forth.

Then you need the real tools. Shovels that lift snow, shovels that push snow and shovels that are easy on your back. You need ice scrapers to remove ice and snow from your car windshield and windows. You need a little "car shovel" in your trunk in case you get stuck in the snow. You need radial tires or snow tires or tire chains or tire studs. Then you need salt to melt the snow where people walk. You need the cheaper rock salt for the asphalt and the more expensive ice melt for the concrete or else it'll be crumbly in a couple years. If you have money, you can buy a snow blower. If you don't do anything about the snow, you and your loved ones will be skeletons when they find you in the spring.

If you have a lot of money, you can hire someone to plow your driveway and shovel your walks for you and you can even pay someone to go to the store for you so you won't have to buy more gloves and coats and boots that look good on you when you go outside. When you want to know when the snow is coming, you turn on the cable or dish TV that you already pay too much for and watch the various weather reports.

These meteorologists and weather anchors make a lot of money to tell you the bad news. The people who plow you out, the people who make and sell all that heavy winter clothing, the people who make all those shovels and ice picks and rock salt, the people who predict all that snow and the people who raise all the prices on the fruit and vegetables that are hard to get because snow covers half the Earth half the time know, hell, more than anybody else, that snow business is the biggest and the best business in town.