Give This Okie Some Severe Weather, Please

No self-respecting Okie will ever get invested in a TV show because we all know it will be preempted by weather. Our weathermen/women are on air like Jerry Lewis in a telethon only they never ever leave the air. One of our local weather guys becomes giddy when the weather turns sour. He gets so close to the camera that you can see the lipstick on his sadistic smirk. Another wears sparkly ties when he believes he’s going to be on air all night. One recently-retired longtime local weatherman, Gary England, had a drinking game inspired by him. (I kid you not, you must Google it now, I will wait…). Here is an excerpt of the Rules.

Gary was appropriately named The Weather God of Oklahoma by the New York Times and even had a cameo appearance in that awful movie, Twister, years ago. When he retired, people took a bereavement day from work and, statewide, hundreds of alcoholics got sober.

I reside now mainly in Arizona, a place so devoid of any weather phenomenon that you can’t even imagine how cheap our home insurance is. There are no tornado or earthquakes here. Yawn. I believe all Arizona weather people phone it in and they don’t even live here. “Today it will be sunny and hot”. Um. Duh. Two months a year they talk of rain from the monsoons but it rarely happens. Like the well-programmed Okies we are, during monsoon season we stack our outdoor cushions against the windows about twice a week, believing the weather forecasters when they say we should expect a downpour, but mostly it is a drill. Of course we do have the occasional haboob which requires the local weathermen to fly back from their second homes in San Diego and do a live shot. Ooh. Live shot. Literally, outside of a haboob and the occasional heat warning, the Arizona weather person’s job is completely, utterly, and shamefully useless. Are you even meteorologists you little pukes?

Today, whilst exercising my two boos on the golf course (The Husband and the dog) I saw this!

I believe it was a rain cloud masquerading as a tornado funnel cloud. Of course, there was no flight back from San Diego so late in the day so we got the usual looped “Hot today with a 30 percent chance of rain” on tonight’s weather.

Where’s the sadistic slug with his creepy lipstick? Where’s the guy with the sparkly tie? How am I watching Jeopardy right now in prime time when there’s a funnel in the sky?

It is decided then. I am watching Twister on Hulu and playing the Scary Gary drinking game. Better pull in those outdoor cushions though. #Homesick.