News Flash - In New Hampshire It Snows

Call out the Coast Guard. Scour the store shelves for the last 12 pack of bottled water, Velveeta cheese and a loaf of bread. It's the blizzard to end all blizzards...the end of days as recorded in the Old Testament...a time for all good men to huddle their families together in the basement and kiss the world goodbye.

Never mind the fact that this is the 120th "blizzard to end all blizzards" this winter alone and that more than three snowflakes in this state constitutes an emergency that must be shouted from the rooftops by every budding Willard Scott in the 603 and 617 area codes. "Yes, we have our Storm Center team who will be keeping you abreast of all the latest...." Hmmm...isn't the Storm Center team the same meteorologist I see every other day on your station as well as the same anchors and correspondents? Honestly, when I hear the term "Storm Center Team," I'm expecting that you've flown in some scientists and climate change specialists from Norway, Switzerland and Moldovia. Yes, these brave men and women have broken away from their important work of gauging the impact of temperature change on the flight pattern of the Honey Buzzard just to provide New Hampshire viewers with the latest road conditions on Route 93. After all, it's the information that PEOPLE NEED TO KNOW.

For God's sake, it's like a broken record - Check in on the elderly, rake your roof, keep off the roads....blah, blah, blah. Find the most expendable correspondent and stick them at a toll booth in a station issued parka and wool hat so that can tell me what I already know by simply looking out my window. Create a hysteria so that every octogenarian who should have handed their keys to the DMV years ago ventures out two days prior to a dusting and clogs up the aisle at Market Basket. Make a local celebrity out of every plow guy who has ever cleared a school parking lot, back alley or emergency room entrance. Boost the ratings by pimping out information that is neither compelling nor Earth shattering. It's snowing....schools are closed....people need to shovel...adjust your driving time.

I've become so desensitized to weather related news reports that if you told me a tsunami was going to hit Pinardville in an hour, I would shrug my shoulders and take in the two o'clock showing of Jackass 3-D. After all, having lived in this great state for the vast majority of my 46 years, I've learned that caution doesn't equal panic and that just because someone on tv or in the newspaper says something doesn't mean that I need to mindlessly alter my daily routine like the rest of the sheep.

Here are a few quick tips for surviving the latest Blizzard of 2011: Buy a shovel, some rock salt and an ice scraper. Order out - most local places stay open and it avoids the rush to the grocery store. Make snow angels, no matter how old you are. Make an anatomically correct snowman or snow woman and try to sneak it onto the air or on the "people and places" page. Throw snowballs at your enemies until you put an eye out- for extra fun, put a rock in the middle of the snowball. Use a snow day not as a way to catch up on work or to start something new but rather as a time to renew acquaintances with Jerry Springer, Maury Povich and Judge Judy. Let the kids go sliding in the backyard and then lock them out for hours. Go bumper riding down Elm Street until the cops get wise to you. Tell your family you're committing suicide and jump off the roof into a snowbank. If they call the authorities, bury yourself but make a blow hole to breathe out of.

See, you don't need an anchorperson to solve this whole mess for you. Just let Uncle Steve simplify everything - It's New Hampshire...it snows....we shovel...we shovel again and we move on. Mass hysteria can be fun (See: Egypt) but when it is created again and again involving the same scenario, it is ponderous at best, mind numbing at worst. If you choose to live in a place where mukluks and a touque are worn for eight months out of a year, what the hell do you expect when you see the flakes begin to fly??

Steve Boucher hopes to encounter a Yeti on the way home tonight and typically refuses to clear off the roof of his car to the consternation of those unfortunate enough to follow too close behind.