Wicked Weather

I was going to call this Things That Irritate Me, Part 5,942, but then I thought, you know, just looking at the titles of a lot of my posts, you might get the impression that I am trying out for Walter Matthau's role in Grumpy Old Men. Of course, I'm not old (yet, but I do hope to be one day) and I'm not a man (and I DON'T hope to be). But, The Clam can tell you, I can get pretty grumpy. However, I am generally in a good mood most of the time. I just... don't suffer fools gladly.

Anyway, it really bugs me that whenever there's a storm (or any bad weather) the caption on the TV news invariably says "Wicked Weather." OK. Here's the thing: weather is a force, not a person. There is no such person as "Mother Nature," people! When we have an ice storm, or freezing rain, or Hurricane Katrina, that is not some hippie chick with long blond hair and a wreath on her head taking a bad acid trip and dragging us along with her. It's just WEATHER. Calling it "wicked" is stupid. It's anthropomorphising it. And I would like to nominate it for the list of phrases and words that need to GO. (You know the list. It comes out once a year. Past "winners" include "talk to the hand," "jiggy" and "that's hot.")

And now, just to make you chuckle, guffaw or giggle, I will again quote C. Montgomery Burns: "Oooh, so Mother Nature needs a favor?! Well maybe she should have thought of that when she was besetting us with droughts and floods and poison monkeys! Nature started the fight for survival, and now she wants to quit because she's losing. Well I say, hard cheese."

If you MUST have alliteration, how about "Wintry Weather?" Because that's what it is...