Category: Uncategorized

Gloucester is a small town. Not in your “Midwestern” style of small town with isolated farms and a mini-mall at the crossroads but more of your European-style small town meaning “thousands of people crammed together on some geographical feature most of whom are related by blood.” And in this small town, tomorrow morning, at approximately the same time everyone in town except our most retiredest and inoxicatedest residents will all try and get on the road at once. The Clam, as a public service, would therefore like to remind you that:

1. The streets are now even fucking narrower than they were a couple of days ago. This may mean you need to stop and let traffic by that is coming in the other direction. There was barely room for two cars on 40% of our roads, now you can fit two cars on the 128 extension, maybe.
2. The roads are going to be slippery and full of people in some kind of semi-urgent distress because they are out of energy drinks and vaping supplies. SLOW THE EFF DOWN. Yes, you in the large black truck who thinks you can just drive around town at 45mph because that logo of Calvin pissing on the competitor truck’s logo proves you’re a TOTAL BADASS. Yes, you. Slow down. Everybody. Me too. For reasons I’m not quite sure of they seem to have not to have treated the roads at all or maybe that’s just East Gloucester. Anyone else notice this? Is that a thing now? When I was a kid they a thing called “sand” but I don’t know if they still make it.
   

   so, it’s consensual then?

3. Kids are stupid. I can tell you this because I was both once a kid who was stupid and have kids and though they are smart in many ways, in others they are stupid. For instance: During the storm we’re snowblowing out my neighbor. My son was on the snowbank and the truck clearing our street came by.
   

   basically this with a plow

   It’s a giant military surplus crane with a plow the size of a Dutch seawall came blaring down so I yelled, “Get off the snowbank and get behind me,” so he jumps INTO THE STREET IN FRONT OF THE TRUCK rather than just take a few steps toward the house and then RUNS DIRECTLY AT THE FRONT OF THE 1976-MADE ALL-METAL SNOWBLOWER THAT COULD DICE A MUSK OX INTO CONFETTI WITHOUT BOGGING THE MOTOR DOWN. So kids are going to be running around everywhere, out of driveways and walks and all kinds of places we won’t be expecting. So slow down and pay attention. No one is getting anywhere on time tomorrow, just live with it.

4. Sidewalks are not getting cleared. We’ll have more to say about the whole sidewalk issue tomorrow, but the reality is only a small portion of them are getting cleared at all, and very few by commute time. Which means the already narrower roads will have people in them as well. Some of those people will be drunk. Can you blame them?
   

   pictured: you

Anyway, stay safe out there. Only a few more storms like this to go!

I, for one, am sick and tired of stupid gimmicky winter storm names. They’re not hurricanes, Weather Channel. Just stop. So instead of referring to this storm as “Winter Storm Juno” (does it come with a teenage pregnancy and Michael Cera?), The Gloucester Clam declares this winter storm to be named “Your Mom.” That way we can say things like:

Your Mom at the MBTA station at midnight last night.

– Your Mom is sucking up moisture off the coast of New Jersey

– Your Mom is full of powerful winds. She’s blowing a solid 30 knots.

– The overtime necessary to plow out after Your Mom may push the city budget into the red.

– Your Mom makes me want to just stay in bed all day.

– Your Mom was so powerful they shut the schools a day in advance.

– Your Mom has been blowing all day, and looks like this may continue into a second night.

– No one in town escaped a good dumping from Your Mom!

– Your Mom is going to responsible for a lot of blackouts and probably a couple of deaths.

– A 75 year old man died of a heart attack right in the middle of Your Mom.

–  I threw out my back plowing Your Mom this morning.

– If it weren’t for Your Mom, I’d have had a productive day.

–  Your Mom is going to keep the entire DPW busy for a week.

– I’m hoping that Your Mom somehow sputters out and only gives us a few inches.

– I think the back end of Your Mom is going to hit us the hardest.

–  I’ll probably be up to my waist in Your Mom, in fact.

– Your Mom is hardest on the elderly and the disabled

– My husband’s beard will be dripping wet by the time he’s done shoveling out Your Mom.

– Your Mom is so massive she can only be seen in her entirety from a satellite.

– ACE ran out of plywood in advance of Your Mom pounding the coast.

– Please seek shelter from Your Mom in the nearest designated municipal disaster shelter.

– I’m really concerned that Your Mom is going to kill my fish.

– The liquor store was packed with people getting ready for Your Mom.

–  They are predicting major beach erosion from Your Mom’s flooding.

– I really worry when they send Al Roker to report live from inside Your Mom. He’s going to drown someday.

– The excessive cold of Your Mom could deflate the Patriots’ balls.

– I, for one, will be tackling Your Mom wearing rubber boots and gloves.

– The supermarket was out of bananas, all because of Your Mom.

We survived the night. But will the living soon come to envy the dead? Remember that scene from “Alive”, the true story of the Uruguayan rugby team whose plane crashed in the Andes in 1972 and the survivors lived for two months after the crash until they were rescued:

Why does the in-flight menu say “Lock Forward”?

Antonio: [debating whether to eat the bodies] I think God would want us to survive. Strive to live.

Gustavo: At all costs?

Antonio: No. I mean, we shouldn’t murder innocents to live.

Gustavo: And what about our innocence? What’s gonna become of our innocence if we survive as cannibals?

These guys were absolved of any sin by Pope Paul.  Keep it in mind, and specifically who qualifies as “innocents.” For instance, my neighbor throws his recycling ito the regular trash.

I’m just saying.

I think it’s too late for that kind of tomfoolery. I’m just going to run around in my backyard maze for a while and then go to sleep.