A humorous look at travel, family, relationships… And all kinds of other shit.

Weather People: The forecast for you is not good.

I am officially declaring a jihad holy war against weather people everywhere.

Weather scum, you have been warned. Wherever you are, wherever you work, you are not safe. I will find you, and I will find a way to hurt you. Your profession is built on a tissue of lies, and it’s time you paid a price for it.

Yours is the only profession in the world where it’s okay to be wrong more than right. And I can’t stand it anymore.

You have taken so much from me over the years with your fake forecasts and guessing-game science.

We have canceled dozens of boating days because of your dire storm warnings, only to see the sun shine bright all day while we curse your names, because the people we were supposed to take boating made other plans.

You’ve ruined picnics. You stopped us from going to an outdoor concert once for no reason because you predicted a monsoon and it drizzled for 15 minutes. You’ve made me wear long pants to Cubs games, where I sweated like a pig and got a rash.

You have been responsible for canceling my flights in strange cities, leaving me stranded far from home for no reason, as your predictions turned out to be full of shit . . . just like your entire profession.

You have predicted blizzards that never arrived, sending entire cities into a state of panic.

But I’ve put up with it. Until now. In fact, up until now I’ve blamed myself for being stupid enough to even listen to the “weather report.”

Now things change. Because now you have broken the ultimate rule. You have come between me and my family.

Last Thursday, I was supposed to go to the suburbs to pick up my son after his baseball practice, and take him back to our Chicago house for a night of good food and some binge watching of “24,” which he is hooked on.

He is almost 16 now and plays two sports, so family nights with him are harder to plan, which makes them all the more precious.

Well, I listened to you ass monkeys all day on Thursday before heading out to get Zach, because you were predicting MAJOR storms. Hail. Damaging wins. Possible tornadoes. Microbursts, whatever that hell those are (probably another one of your made-up terms).

One off the Elders of your Church of Bullshit, Chicago weatherman Tom “I make shit up for a living” Skilling, actually said: “Don’t get in your car if you don’t have to.”

You made it sound like the God damned Apocolypse.

So . . . and I’m ashamed to admit this . . . I canceled. I arranged for child care, and stayed home. I didn’t want to risk my son’s life driving in The Perfect Storm.

And . . . . nothing happened. I could have gone back and forth THREE TIMES to get Zach and it would have been fine. Sure, it rained for a little while But nobody was building any God damned Arks.

You took away a night with my son. And now you shall pay.

Here’s how.

I’m going to find out where you hang out. I’m going to go to the bars you go to. I’m going to crash the parties where weather people gather to laugh at the gullibility of the general public. I may even come to your house for your next cookout.

And I’m going to do any one of a number of things:

  1. Maybe I’ll tell you that there is only a “5 percent chance” that I’m going to kick your nuts up into your mouth. You will feel safe. You will be happy. You will like your odds. And then after an hour, I’m going to kick your nuts up into your mouth. And I won’t even apologize for being wrong, because you bastards never do.
  1. Or maybe I’ll tell you that there is a 90 percent chance that I am going to smash a glass into your eyes. Then I will watch you worry the entire night, and maybe even piss yourself a little, before I walk out, having ruined your night. And this time, I’ll say: “Ooops. Missed that one.”
  1. I am going to tell you that there is absolutely no chance of rain . . . and then I am going to piss on your leg and say, “Whoa . . . where did THAT microburst come from?”
  1. Or I am going to buy you a beer, and the dump it over your head, and say: “That is for the time you predicted no rain, and I got caught in a storm out on my boat.”

I imagine once my movement gains momentum, many people will join the jihad against you. You have been warned.

P.S. In case the NSA is monitoring this post, I am not actually advocating violence against anyone, and will not actually hurt anyone. So if bad things start happening to weather people, for the record, it wasn’t me.

4 Responses to “Weather People: The forecast for you is not good.”

  1. Kari

    Having lived in Arizona for the past four years, I have given up weather reports. Sometimes I check the current temperature on my phone just to see how high the temperature is. (For the record, it is 88°.)

  2. Steve Crescenzo

    You are lucky, Kari, in that you are, for the most part, not beholden to the weather to make plans seven months out of the year. Then again, you don’t get to live in Chicago, the greatest city on earth (except for the weatherpeople).

  3. Babis

    Yeah, not only did you miss Willie Nelson but don’t forget, you missed the awesome memory of mom starting a fight with the drunk idiot in front of us during the downpour AFTER the concert as we waited for shuttles…the one where he called me (who was wearing a garbage bag – literally) your 75 year old mother, & your 12 year old niece” Yuppies” , bwahahaha!!

  4. Ron Fuchs

    Steve, or should we call you Mr Sunshine? Oscar Wilde once said that conversation about weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative. Clearly he was wrong, as your column proves, and he is no doubt howling in his grave with laughter. Best from sunny/rainy Basel.

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