Remember when we learned that our wealthiest and most powerful people were connected to a guy who ran a literal child sex trafficking ring? And then that guy died mysteriously in a jail? And now we just don't talk about it.

Every winter we get the same brave speeches from the new Transplants with New York or New Jersey plates still rattling around on the back of the car. They see the forecast, a half inch of ice, and grin like we just announced a light dusting of powdered sugar. “Back home this wouldn’t be nothin’,” they say. “We’d get two feet and still make it to work.” And listen… they ain’t wrong. Up there, snow falls all fluffy and polite. It stacks up like pillows. Plow trucks roll through like a well-rehearsed parade. Salt gets thrown around like bird feed at a wedding. Life keeps moving. Kids might even still have school, just wearing boots that cost more than our first car. But down here, In North Carolina, about halfway between Maine and Florida, winter don’t fall, it coats. We don’t get a snow globe. We get a Krispy Kreme glaze on every road, tree limb, and power line in three counties. Snow is soft. Ice is mean. Snow lets you shovel. Ice dares you to try standing up. Snow piles up on branches. Ice snaps ‘em in half and sends ‘em into power lines like nature’s game of pick-up sticks. So when a Southerner hears “half an inch,” we don’t picture sledding. We picture sitting in the dark, wrapped in three blankets, opening the fridge one time like it’s a sacred ritual, and realizing you will not, in fact, be heating up that pork roll this morning. Because the power company is somewhere down a back road staring at a pine tree that just suplexed a transformer. Bless the Yankees, though. First ice storm down here is a rite of passage. That confident little smirk fades right around the moment their driveway turns into a curling rink and the whole neighborhood goes quiet except for branches popping in the woods. That’s when they learn. Up north, winter is a season. Down here, ice is an event.

And this is why I don’t play Spades ♠️ I just sit in the corner and watch the chaos unfold