You’ve been an insufferable tease, Old Man Winter.
First, you tortured us over the holidays. You dropped a festive, dense blanket of white just about everywhere but here. State College was virtually barren, a winter wasteland.
Then you started sprinkling these n’er-do-well faux storms on us. You know: the ones potent enough just to be annoying and stir up repeated two-hour delays. State College schools had three of them last week alone.
Really. How could you? That’s like buying filet mignon for your best friend, but cooking it only halfway.
And now you’ve drop-kicked us into the deep freeze. The mercury was well below zero — without the wind chill — when most of us woke up this morning. That’s beyond beastly.
But here’s the good news: This week could mark your hour of redemption.
Indeed, this week, you can help counteract all the pain you’ve wrought with a little pleasure. You can balance out the brutality of the season with a brush of its beautiful benefits.
You can make this mid-week snowstorm happen.
Over at AccuWeather.com, senior expert meteorologist Alex Sosnowski tells us that a developing weather system could pour a foot of snow into the Nittany Valley late Tuesday and into Wednesday. It could wreak havoc with travel, shut down the schools — all the good stuff.
Of course, forecasts aren’t guarantees, and you’ve let down before, Old Man Winter.
Don’t leave us hanging this time.
Be relentless. Let the snow clog the atmosphere. White it out. Dump it at our doorsteps — so high and so dense that we’ll need a shovel to get out.
Deliver us an excuse to bring out the cross-county skis, the sleds, the toboggans — all on a weekday. Turn the Penn State golf courses into a snow globe, punctuated only by dog footprints, boot treads and skiers’ unmistakable tracks.
Let the school kids stay home for a whole day. Leave them with enough packable powder for gargantuan snow forts, epic snowball battles and inches-deep snow angels. And pile it highly enough that they can brake their Flexible Flyers well at Slab Cabin Park.
Because no one likes to end up in the stream.
Make the flakes accumulate thickly atop pine-tree boughs, too. Force the branches to bow down under the weight, in a picturesque portrait that we might not see again until next winter. Photographers will love it.
Bring enough snow, Old Man, that even Penn State will be forced to close. Release the college kids for a day at play. Grant them an escape from class. Let them use cafeteria trays to rocket down the campus hillsides. Give snowmen a chance to sprout on the Old Main lawn.
You know they’ll be anatomically correct, so not all education will be lost for the day.
Seriously, though, we’ve earned this one. The plows have fuel. The salt’s stocked and waiting.
We’re ready. Don’t hold back.
