The French Toast Defense

Take the children into the other room, I've got something to say. 

Natives of the Cincinnati/Tri-State area are shitty drivers. 

I was born and raised in Michigan, but I've lived in a few different places.  I currently call Cincy home. On a good day, the natives do five-under in the fast lane, because they have a left exit in 15 miles or so. They use either the brake or the accelerator at all times, sometimes both together.  Coasting to regulate speed is a foreign concept.  Rain, nay, mist means an automatic 10 mph speed reduction.  We have sun delays in the mornings on eastbound highways because a significant portion of the population has yet to discover sunglasses.  You see, a sun delay is caused by people on the highway slowing to a crawl because they can't see well enough to proceed at the posted speed.  I've seen people driving, peeking through their fingers, as if watching a scary movie.  Unfortunately, none of this is satire or humor, merely the sort of no-BS assessment that I'm usually paid handsomely for.  Risk Management requires honest analysis of often grim situations, but that's another blog entry entirely.

Shift gears with me into the most dreaded of all road conditions, snow.  In Michigan, it's just snow, and it's been known to fall nine months out of the year.  Here in Cincinnati, it takes on a sinister persona; local radio and TV weather personalities insist on panic inducing titles like “Snowmageddon” and “The White Death” (nearly as bad as the Black Death, I'm told.)  This fear mongering from the talking heads on the airwaves leads the local populace to take ridiculous measures to prepare for the impending doom. By impending doom, I mean the 1-2” of accumulation weather.com has predicted.  A dusting of snow, so little that the wind will sweep the ground bare in most places.

I understand limiting travel in less than ideal conditions, and I thank those that do so.  Bumper cars are far more suited for the carnival than the highway.  It's the other chief preparation for potential snowfall that inspires this blog entry.  When it's going to snow in southern Ohio, everyone goes to the supermarket and buys all the milk, bread, and eggs they can. 

Not canned goods, dry goods, flashlights or batteries, but three of the most perishable groceries available. At first I was perplexed.  Was I missing something?  Surely the locals must have actionable intel, earned by inhabiting the area since birth.  One day I was sitting on the couch, (having been sent home from work early, it's going to snow!) and something occurred to me.  The snow in Cincinnati is as perishable as the provisions people purchase to ward it off.  Within a day or two of actual snowfall, it melts away, leaving only wet roads and busy auto-body shops. Yet there must be a connection, some symbiotic relationship.  As a firm believer in Occam's razor, parsimony, and simplicity, I have come to a conclusion.  The people of Cincinnati barricade themselves at home and defend themselves from wintry conditions by assembling milk, bread and eggs into the simplest of comfort foods, French Toast.  

Hence, “The French Toast Defense.”