Brent
POPE
Brain freeze
When you have Cabin Fever, ideas snowball
I can see it now: the snow is 7 feet
high, the wind chill factor is 40
below zero and everything is closed:
roads, stores, even the post office
(which is never closed, except for
those 95 federal
holidays every
year). The
Farmer’s Alma
nac is predicting
the coldest,
snowiest, butt
freezingest winter
in decades, and
The Farmer’s
Almanac is never
wrong (unless you count that time it
said that Little Richard would
someday be president.)
And when a huge snowstorm
barricades you in your apartment like
Fat Albert in size 28 pants, you have
a good chance of going a bit stir
crazy. I believe the exact medical
term is “Cabin Fever” (although I’m
not a medical student, and I don’t
even play one on TV). Personally, I
have always thought that Cabin Fever
was a stupid name. I prefer to call it
“What Happens When The Snow’s
Too High,” or W-H-W-T-S-T-H for
short.
In any case, this phenomenon,
caused by the cruelty of
Mother Nature, is less enjoyable than
a fork in the eye — I should know,
I’m very clumsy with utensils—and
the only way to keep your sanity is to
«
Personally, I have always thought
that Cabin Fever was a stupid name.
I prefer to call it “What Happens
When The Snow’s Too High,’or
W-H-W-T-S-T-H for short.”
distract yourself from the fact that
you are trapped.
Luckily, before this happens, you
will have some options, courtesy of
your friendly neighborhood colum
nist. That’s not to say you don’t
already have options. You could
always sit entranced by the television
until the roads are cleared, but, as my
Uncle Mentos always says, “You can
only watch so much of Chuck Norris
in ‘Walker, Texas Ranger’ before you
start yanking out your own teeth with
your bare hands.” (Although I do
enjoy that one episode where he
kicks the bad guy.)
Anyway, here are some other fun
things that you can do when you’re
snowed in:
1. Make new outfits from things
you find in your trash can. Garbage
ensembles are great stocking stuffers
for loved ones, and I just made
myself a tuxedo out of four pizza
boxes, three pot pie tins, two plastic
one-liter bottles and a slightly rotted
banana peel.
2. Pretend that you are Super
Mario. This is how you do it: You
run around your house really fast,
jumping on all the tables and
countertops in your way. Then you
pound every inch of the ceiling and
walls with your fists, looking for
hidden gold coins. If you actually
find any gold coins, you shout with
glee in a phony Italian accent.
3. Play a game called “What If...”.
Here’s how it works: You come up
with a make-believe scenario for the
world and imagine what would
happen as a result. For example, I
could say “What if... Big Macs were
outlawed by the Surgeon General?”
Then I would respond, “President
Clinton would resign his office to
spend more time trying to reinstate
the burger as an American institution.
Hillary would then take over as
president, because, as it turns out, A1
Gore is actually just a large painted
log owned by Hillary. She would
then declare that all cities and towns
in the United States would no longer
be cities and towns, but villages
instead. That way we could raise our
children better.”
4. Do a writing exercise I call
“Stephen King’s Bedtime Stories.”
You take a children’s story and make
it into a disgusting horror story.
These come in really handy during
finals week. Instead of drinking
gallons of coffee for those
late-night cramming sessions to keep
you awake, just read one of these
stories. I’ve come up with some
really neat ones, including “The
Little Ax-Murderer That Could,”
“The Dismembered Cat in the Hat”
and “Green Eggs and a Stinky
Corpse.”
These suggestions should keep
you from going completely wacko
during that huge winter storm that is
looming over the horizon. And if for
some reason they don’t work, just do
what my Uncle Mentos does in these
situations: curl up in the fetal
position, hum the “Sesame Street”
theme song and bite your toenails
until the snow melts.
Pope is a senior broadcasting
major and a Daily Nebraskan
columnist
Heather
LAMPE
The weather outside...
Not just frightful, it’s downright bone-chilling
The calendar says it’s only Dec. 5,
but I can feel it coming on already. I
have an allergy that only the Gulf of
Mexico can cure. It’s cold. It’s wet It
makes me want to play Dr.
Kevorkian with
the weather man.
It’s winter.
I’ve come
to believe that
God didn’t
intend for us to
live in Nebraska
or any of the
surrounding
snow-bearing
states. It was our idiot ancestors who
decided to populate this area of the *
country.
“Well, Ma, what would you think
of packing up all our belongings and
moving to the promised land?”
“Sure, Pa. They say California is
full of gold.”
(Many months pass. A couple of
wagon wheels fall off.)
“Ma, this seems to be taking
longer than expected. I don’t want to
end up like those Dormer people who
had to munch on each other. How
about if we take these people up on
that Homestead Act and stay in this
flat, barren, bitterly cold land?”
“OK, Pa. The wind is cold enough
to make one’s nipples fall off, but for
free land, what the heck! Who needs
nipples anyway?”
Like most people, I have an
aversion to the six months out of the
u
When Bing Crosby sang about
dreaming of a white Christmas, he
was probably living in California.”
year that I spend shivering. Winter
doesn’t officially begin until Dec. 21,
but don’t tell Mother Nature that. She
likes cold so much that sometimes
she starts in October and doesn’t stop
until March.
I’m not good at winter. I have a
nose that runs when the temperature
goes below 60 degrees. By the time
January rolls around with its bone
chilling temperatures, I’ve quit trying
to wipe my nose and have just settled
for shoving the Kleenex up my nose.
I’m quite the sight to see, walking
down the sidewalk, Kleenex hanging
out of my nose, bright red ears off
setting pasty white skin, chapped lips
that are cracked to the point of
bleeding, cuss words spewing from
my mouth.
If you see me, you will probably
also notice that I am missing a glove.
There’s a winter phenomenon
involving gloves and mittens that
plagues a lucky few. The minute the
temperature goes below 30, the
Glove Fairy comes and steals one of
my gloves. Some think she’s working
for Michael Jackson, but we can’t be
sure.
I’ve done everything I can to
protect my precious gloves. I’ve even
bought those gloves that little kids
get that hook onto coat sleeves. But
it’s no use. I look away for a mo
ment, and they’re gone.
I’m currently working on setting
up the Center for Missing and
Exploited Gloves. It would include a
hotline that would take calls from
those with information on missing
gloves. It would be our goal to
reunite the gloves with their beloved
hands.
I’ve also contacted “Unsolved
Mysteries,” so that when the gloves
are found, we can do touchy-feely
reenactments of gloves being
reunited. Robert Stack can’t wait to
get started.
Missing gloves and snotty noses
are only a few of the things that make
me want to move to the Amazon.
There is also the snow and ice. When
Bing Crosby sang about dreaming of
a white Christmas, he was probably
living in California.
Don’t let the picture postcards of
snowbirds nesting in a snowy pine
tree fool you. Somewhere behind that
pine tree, there is a sidewalk covered
with ice, ready and waiting for me to
wipe out on.
I’ve decided that when it gets icy
out, I might as well dress up like
Tonya Harding. If I go anywhere
near a patch of ice, I’m pretty much
guaranteed that my fat thighs are
going to kiss the pavement.
I’ve installed golf cleats on the
bottom of my snow boots, but I still
spend most of my time outside on my
butt. I just tell the people who walk
by and stare that I suddenly felt
inspired to make a snow angel. They
don’t need to know that I have the
coordination of a drunk toddler.
God forbid that I should have the
money to go to school on the sunny
shores of Malibu, so I might as well
accept my fate.
If you can’t beat it, then pretend to
enjoy it.
Let it snow. Let it snow. Let it
snow.
Lampe is a senior news-editorial
and English major and a Daily
Nebraskan columnist.