Mother Nature Hates You Too

Dear Mr. Weatherman:

It has become increasingly difficult to respect you and your profession. I tend to hold the institution more responsible than the individual, as your counterparts on rival stations spew the same misinformation as you; indeed, even the misnamed weather.com assures me that I should only carry an umbrella on the sunniest of days. I'd think you collect royalties from Isotoner (Tote's is a subsidiary), except you throw curveballs and recommend I leave the umbrella in my closet when it rains.

Summer weather should be easy. It's either sunny or rainy. Yeah, there are different degrees (by now, you should infer all puns are intentional) of each, but it's either doing to be dry or wet.

With your high-fangled technology, you go so far as to provide hourly predictions, so I can plan accordingly for the difference between a 5% chance and a 40% chance of T-storms. Maybe that's your loophole - technically, you don't spell out what the T stands for. Tidy? Tepid? Tuesday?

I've seen weathermen for years, and never once have I heard one apologize for offering bad advice. Rather, you paste on your plastic smile, recite jokes worse than those I spew in this blog, and self-righteously wink as you send it back to the anchor desk. You're a fraud.

My son has football practice thrice weekly, and I - like a sheep - faithfully check your forecast to see whether thunderstorms will cancel the session and free up our evening. For the better part of August, you confidently promised 30-40% storms. Mathematically, if you're calling for 35% chance of rain, then you should be right at least one out of three times, right? Yet no practices have been called off. Zero.

Only today, when it was supposed to be sunny and beautiful did I wake up to find dark clouds, wet pavement, and bumper-to-bumper driving on the highways because local idiots don't know how to drive when the sky is falling, the sky is falling!

Today. The day of my son's sixth birthday. Y'know, the day of the party where we have 30 people coming to our house for outdoor fun and games.

You shouldn't earn any money beyond tips charitable people leave you - out of pity. Or, maybe when your tarot cards and tea leaves happen to deal out an accurate prediction, you get paid. Otherwise, suck it up. Put your money where your mouth is.

There's a 30-40% chance I'll hold the party outside tonight anyway. And when I say "outside," I mean in your yard. You may want to cover your carpet with towels, because that's a lot of muddy feet. If you're lucky, we may give you a piece of cake. Jerk.

Sincerely,


Nash