Snowtastrophe comes just in time for The Column

My sallow Americans.

It is time for the annual State of The Column address, which coincidentally coincides with that dumb thing the president does every year.

In fact, as I write these words, George W. Bush is in the frantic final stages of selecting which fork-tongued lies he figures he can get away with.

But the Presidential Snow Job is not my concern.

We have our own Snow Job to worry about.

Oh, what a year it has been here in the ol’ newsroom.

Layoffs. Reassignments. Deportations …

One by one, pundits around me have been done in like attractive coeds in a slasher flick.

Yet The Column crawls on like a cockroach after a nuclear blast. Or perhaps The Column is more like some ageless undead zombie creature.

You know, Keith Richards.

Or Cher.

But there is a good reason The Column has scuttled onward since 1984:

Victims.

Yes, The Column has never lacked for folly to feed on or wounded to shoot.

Take, for example, the storm that unleashed a record foot or so of snow onto the region.

Granted, this was a pretty grand dumping. But the TV snow reporters have been piddling on themselves like high-strung poodles.

They give the impression that we have entered a new Ice Age.

One station kept using the word “pounds” (or was it “pounding?”) to describe the snowstorm.

I got so excited I went out on my porch to listen to the explosions.

Damn. All I heard was the natural soft sounds of snow falling – IN WINTER!

I was asleep when the following melodrama unfolded: My lovely wife, Sherry, told me she was watching TV Monday morning when one of the crews foolishly got its news van stuck.

If I got a Spokesman-Review car stuck in the snow, I wouldn’t want anyone to know for fear of getting royally razzed.

But these nincompoops apparently reported on their marooned vehicle as if it were a major storm development.

What were these clods doing outside, anyway?

Every five seconds or so the talking heads keep telling us to stay inside and preferably under the bed.

The only way this storm would have been worth the hype is if it had happened in July.

My favorite part of the TV coverage was when a reporter just ran out of words and started gushing: “It’s just amazing how much is coming down.”

That’s hard-hitting journalism.

Amazing? You want to see amazing, go see the movie “Cloverfield.” That monster leveling New York City – whoa – now that’s a catastrophe.

On the plus side, the snow event has given our young people a much-needed break so they can hone their Guitar Hero skills.

Bless their little hearts.

The poor tykes haven’t had an extra day away from the grindstone since, oh, last week’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

In all their faux snow angst, the broadcasters have ignored the storm’s one beneficial aspect.

For the first time in decades the potholes are filled.

The Column is not always so cynical when it comes to weather reportage.

Ice Storm ‘96. Now that was worth all the goofy adjectives.

Gas generators selling for the price of a new Lexus. Trees snapping like teeth in a hockey fight.

It was colder than a Nazi’s soul.

The Clarks were a day or two away from having to eat our pet dog, Elvis, to survive.

Even with the fireplace and a woodstove roaring, the thermometer in the Clark home never rose above 37 degrees.

Friends told us to go rent a motel room.

No way. We had to stay put until the frozen end.

And why, you ask, would a sane man keep his family shivering in an electricity-devoid meat locker?

You already know the answer, my sallow Americans.

The Column must have its victims.