There’s a real doozy of a blizzard barreling toward the northeast. Consequently, many residents of the eastern seaboard received very urgent calls from their mothers this morning, asking about their commuting plans and battery stockpiles and wool socks and canned goods.
I am an expert in handling these calls, because I’ve lived in icy hellholes for a decade and I still receive them from my parents down in sunny Georgia. (Hurricane Sandy, by comparison, rated only a reminder to fill the bathtub, because once you’ve evacuated your flooded home in a boat, anything less seems pretty routine.) And so, drawing on many years of experience, here is a guide to reassuring your mother/father/grandparents/cousins/college friends/long-distance significant other—whoever just caught some apocalyptic graphics on CNN and now fears for your very life, because they love you.
Answer the phone. Seriously, have you watched cable news lately? They make it sound like cannibals will be roaming the streets by sunrise tomorrow. If you don’t answer the phone, your mom will instantly assume you’re already a goner and you’ll spend the next three days reassuring her that really, everything is fine, you are definitely not barricaded inside your bathroom with a blood-spattered golf club, two Luna bars and a damp packet of matches. Radio silence is the worst possible move.
Keep repeating that you are fully stocked and prepared to ride this thing out in comfort and style. She doesn’t need to know that your definition of “prepared” is two handles of leftover booze, a half-eaten bag of stale lime-dusted Tostitos, 33 percent battery life and a pair of ratty flannel pajama pants. Remain calm and continue to emphasize that you have a flashlight (somewhere? maybe?). That said, when you hang up you should probably run to the grocery store because Seamless isn’t really an option this time. At least have a bag of pizza rolls or something.
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