crabdog day — south end meteorology
I love a good holiday as much as the next yahoo … but c’mon, this Groundhog’s Day business, let’s be honest, the Chamber of Commerce out there in Pullmyleg, Pennsylvania has pulled a fast one on those of us who take meteorologic prediction seriously. Down here on the convergence zoned South End, No Way is a groundhog going to see his shadow on Feb. 2nd. Even if we had groundhogs! This thing just gives Science a bad name. And lately, the last thing it needs in these superstitious, Mayan Calendar, end-of-the-world times is a black eye over some mammalian hairball on the East Coast seeing its hairball shadow (or not) and then extrapolating that to El Nino or asteroid strikes on Wall Street or global warming.
Which is precisely why some of the more empirically minded boyz down at the Mabana Body Shop have been searching, in a deductive sort of methodology, an alternative Predictor of winter longevity. Hellfire, if winter’s just going to last until April, we figure there’s no point in fighting serious incentive-reducing Inevitability. We’ll just pull the covers up, collect unemployment and wait for spring. This is how civilizations thrive: they figure out tides and seasons for planting schedules and harvest times and happy hours.
The model the boyz constructed over the past decade or so is a local paradigm that utilizes a 5 gallon polyethylene bucket of fresh caught Dungeness crabs —- I KNOW you’re going to point out they’re illegal this time of season, but listen, we’re putting em back when the data is collected. Spirit of the Law, if not the Letter and that, in a clamshell is the very essence of the South End Way. —- So you got a pail of clacking claws and now you bring out a dog, any dog, any breed, random sampling, see? And you let the pooch check out the crustaceans. No shadows, no hibernating drowsy marmots. And if the crab gets a lock on Snoopy’s snout, voila, studies have shown that is a true omen of an early spring. The dog schnozz slips the noose, 6 more weeks of sleeping in.
Simple. Like Einstein says, the more elegant the theory, the higher the probability it’s correct. And the boyz down at the body shop will tell you, the accuracy here is in the 90 percentile range, statistically astounding. We’re not claiming, like those unabashed self promoters in Pennsylvania, that this will predict spring for the entire country, but for all us Left Coasters, rest assured, Feb 2nd now has science as its bedrock foundation. We’ll leave it to the South End Chamber of Commerce how they want to capitalize on it. Crab Dog Day. Nice profitable ring to it, don’t you think, kind of like a cash register. If we can keep PETA at bay….
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Sounds like Skeeter’s on the prowl again. Nice little commentary. Now, I’m sure there is some scientific application or spin-off benefit for what to do with all the bandaged snouts that’ll be sniffing in the usual South End garbage cans for the next couple of weeks after everyone’s done their own Crabdog weather report. Maybe Kate Wigner or the Camano Insane Society could work a deal to patch up snouts for disabled dog owners. The snouts and disabled being the dogs, not the owners. Remember, this is the South End.
From the hills of Slovenia we raise a glass of locally distilled moanshine to Skeeter. We left Amerika to get away from a society that will believe in the predictable power of a stinky little animal’s shadow, but refutes the science of global warming. I find elegance in Skeeter’s empiricism. It, at least, exemplifies the indisputable universal belief that the nose Knows.
Thank you Skeeter
E.T.
yo, edvard, i will raise a glass of heavy nettle spring tonic to you as well, sir. keep that EU afloat, will you? sounds like your groundhogs got all the winter weather instead of us. no doubt spring will return 6 months from now if the snow melts….
Had to share this with my Alternative High school friends back in VT- so ole Skeeter may have a few new fans soon….BTW there is a little glitch in the audio.