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Schooled: ‘Irenepocalypse?’ Too Soon?

Kristina Schnack Kotlus

President Obama said it, the West Coast Social Network is currently saying it, even my husband, a native New Englander has said it: We're kind of pansies about weather in our area, and lately we've been hit with a bunch of it.

Growing up in Northern Virginia, when I went away to the College of the Holy Cross and had to take an exam in an actual blizzard, it was culture shock. Here in the DC Metro Area, we cancel school for a projected dusting. My military friends who have lived in California tell me that no reaction is warranted to anything under a 6.5 earthquake. Friends in the gulf coast region have informed me that the appropriate response to a rapidly approaching storm is not to buy toilet paper and milk, but batteries and margarita mix for whomever's house you're holding your hurricane party at.

That's not to poke fun at natural disasters. I of course understand that Mother Nature goes on some pretty intense drunken rampages when she's off her meds -- things like the earthquake in Haiti or the tsunamis in Japan. But when we all take to social media claiming a "snowpocalypse," we're kind of asking for people in other parts of the country, especially areas who regularly weather snow higher than their cars, to make fun of us.

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