First came the attack. Then the photos. Then the haiku. Then the prose.
Hey Californians! it’s a bad idea to throw snowball at someone from Wisconsin: Revolutionary ConTEXTing Haiku, 11:58 a.m. Feb. 2nd, 2014
Tragic, ye who don’t/
grasp the wrath of Cheeseheads struck/
by your first snowball.
——
Don’t Start A Snowball Fight With A Wisconsinite: Revolutionary ConTEXTing Prose, 12:31 p.m. Feb. 2nd, 2014
I shall tell the tale of a southern Californian who attempted to engage me, a fifth-generation Wisconsinite, in a “snowball fight”. I do so not to boast nor brag, but in the hope that it may prevent further mishaps in the future.
In central Utah, this “beach blonde” picked up a mitten full of dry Utah powder, with the mistaken idea that simply doing so would form a “snowball”. I warned her that she really didn’t want to start start a snowball fight with this cheesehead. She came close to me and threw the handful of powdered directly on my face. (See photo number one).
Due to her close proximity, my face was completely covered with snow. I then reached down, picked up a handful of snow, packed it into a snowball, the way it should be formed, and said, “Now you’re in trouble.” As she slipped and slided across the field, my expertly-formed and thrown missiles hit her back, her hat-covered head, and her neck, (where of course the snow slid down underneath her shirt on to her bare back).
At that point, she said “That’s not fair! I don’t know how to make snowballs like that!” To which I responded: “Don’t attack an expert. Don’t start what you can’t finish.”
As I drew closer, thinking that she had stopped her aggressive behavior, she once again reached down and grabbed a handful of snow. This time, she knew enough to pack it, which she quickly did. Unfortunately, she didn’t realize that if you’re standing on ICY, hard snow, when you throw a snowball, the laws of physics will probably force your feet to slide out from under you, at which point gravity takes over and you end up flat on your back in the snow.
Being a gentleman, I of course reached down to help her stand up. Again, she foolishly attempted to engage me by picking up a handful of snow and throwing it toward my face. However, she failed to realize that the snow was light and powdery, and it simply ended up going about 2 feet in the air and then falling back in her face.
In such a situation, I saw no other option but to stand over her and help her understand that she shouldn’t attack me any more. Straddling her, I leaned over and grabbed handfuls of snow, and held them above her face, which she had covered with her mittens. I was patient. When she would open her mittens from over her face, I simply let go of the snow and let gravity take over. With her face covered with handfuls of cold snow, (See photo number two) she finally gave up.
A word to the wise:
We Wisconsinites tend to be a fairly friendly and docile bunch of people. But when we are attacked, especially with snow weapons which we’ve known how to create and use since we were two years old, we will end the fight quickly and conclusively.
-fini-