Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

I finally got one decent night's sleep, and the very next night I get smacked with insomnia. Feh. Anyhow, I just posted this to talk.bizarre and figured I'd share it here as well. (I've made minor stylistic edits and deleted some bits that are redundant in light of my 5 AM entry, but have not done the complete rewrite that I probably should have.)

In my part of the world there is a well-documented (and frequently mentioned) but poorly-understood phenomenon which drives hordes of people to dash to grocery stores in a purchasing frenzy to buy weeks worth of bread and milk and (depending on the county they grew up in) either eggs or toilet paper, whenever the weatherman mentions that snow is on the way. This isn't just a regional running joke; you can see the effects in any area grocery store: the depleted shelves in those sections, the odd behaviour in the checkout line, the crowding at different hours than when the stores are usually busy in other weather. It's real.

At some point it dawned on me (and I mentioned it about a month ago) that the Snow Panic Purchase Trinity are all snow-coloured items. Oh, sure, a loaf of bread is brown on the outside, but people are buying sliced sandwich bread, and when you look at a slice of white bread, what's the colour that comes to mind to describe it? And admittedly there's yellow on the insides of the eggs, but I'm inclined to label eggs "white things" anyhow. So I've been wondering whether there's supposed to be some magical (or at least superstitious) effect, some power or protection to be gained, by making White Purchases in the face of The Dreaded White Stuff From The Sky. (Or maybe it's merely the power of suggestion urging people toward buying white things (much as the word "yellow" bounced around a half-asleep Arthur Dent's brain that fateful morning), but it's more fun to try to figure out what magical purpose such a ritual would serve, William of Ockham be damned.) Is it to deflect the full force of the storm and reduce the snowfall totals?Or to insulate the purchaser from snow-caused delays and inconveniences?

(And does something similar work against a heat wave or drought? Facing an unusually hot spell in the summer, should we buy yellow foods to represent the sun, or blue foods (of which there really ought to be more, dammit) to represent a cloudless sky?)

But the reason I'm writing this now is that the snowstorm here has just ended, and just as I was finally getting sleepy enough that I might be able to crash, I also became very hungry...

... And while trying to decide which of those needs to satisfy, it occurred to me that the cottage cheese in my fridge would make an extremely quick and convenient snack and possibly not interrupt my progression toward slumber ...

And when it hit me: Snow-Coloured Food. Does this mean that I am not immune to that mysterious White Stuff Urge after all? No better than the wild-eyed panic-shoppers? Or is there some great (or at least mildly helpful) magical purpose to my eating white food this morning?

And finally, if I sprinkle Old Bay seasoning on top of my cottage cheese, would that be a metaphor for the trucks that spread orange sand over snowy streets?

Would it work as sympathetic magic to summon one of those salt trucks that haven't shown up yet?

(We'll conveniently overlook the fact that they're supposed to be spreading blue salt these days.)

Of course, thinking too much about this, and taking the time to type it up, has chased away the sleep that had seemed so near. So I could make a more interesting breakfast instead. But perhaps I'll go ahead and do the experiment.

But if I don't sleep, and the salt truck appeareth not, I won't know whether it's because the spell is ineffectual in general, or because my wakefulness has cancelled it out by keeping Salta Claus away.

Update: While I was polishing this entry, a snowplow did come by.