"Stop, you vandals! You home wreckers!" bawled Arthur. "You half-crazed Visigoths, stop, will you!"
Ford would have to go after him. Turning quickly to the barman he asked for four packets of peanuts.
"There you are, sir," said the barman, slapping the packets on the bar, "twenty-eight pence if you'd be so kind."
Ford was very kind--he gave the barman another five-pound note and told him to keep the change. The barman looked at it and then looked at Ford. He suddenly shivered: he experienced a momentary sensation that he didn't understand because no one on Earth had ever experienced it before. In moments of great stress, every life form that exists gives out a tiny subliminal signal. This signal simply communicates an exact and almost pathetic sense of how far that being is from the place of his birth. On Earth it is never possible to be farther than sixteen thousand miles from your birthplace, which really isn't very far, so such signals are too minute to be noticed. Ford Prefect was at this moment under great stress, and he was born six hundred light-years away in the near vicinity of Betelgeuse.
The barman reeled for a moment, hit by a shocking incomprehensible sense of distance. He didn't know what it meant, but he looked at Ford Prefect with a new sense of respect, almost awe.
"Are you serious, sir?" he said in a small whisper which had the effect of silencing the pub. "You think the world's going to end?"
"Yes," said Ford.
"But, this afternoon."
Ford had recovered himself. He was at his flippest.
"Yes," he said gaily," in less than two minutes I would estimate."
The barman couldn't believe this conversation he was having, but he couldn't believe the sensation he had just had either.
"Isn't there anything we can do about it then?" he said.
"No, nothing," said Ford, stuffing the peanuts into his picket.
Someone in the hushed bar suddenly laughed raucously at how stupid everyone had become.
It is sort of like Armageddon outside right now. Like my little part of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan is being wiped out by spaceships from the ice planet Hoth (that's for all the Star Wars geeks reading this post). All the schools are closed. The U. S. Post Office didn't deliver mail. The governor declared a state of emergency for the ENTIRE state. I didn't have to teach today, so now I'm blogging. Then, it's on to my annual evaluation narrative for the English Department. That will take me right up to bedtime, I'd bet, with a side trip for dinner.
Tomorrow is supposed to get better in the afternoon. Tonight, however, is supposed to have -45 degree wind chills. That's colder than last night. Schools have already started to announce closures for tomorrow. My kids have not started thinking about another day off. Yet. I'm sure that will start at around 7:00 or 7:30 this evening.
Of course, the excitement of snow days is different for them than it was for me. When I was their ages, I would have to get up in the morning, turn on the radio, and wait for the announcer to go through the entire list of school closings, praying, hoping, despairing, then celebrating when I heard the name of my school. When I was younger, it was my mom coming into the bedroom in the morning, saying, "No school today," like Professor Dumbledore waving his wand and changing me into a unicorn.
These days, the news is delivered directly to their cell phones. Or on Facebook. My daughter knew school was cancelled last night before I did, thereby stealing one of the pleasures of being a parent: delivering the news of a snow day to your child and seeing the pleasure spread across his/her face like a ray of sunshine. Another thing that technology has ruined.
My goal this evening is to be first. To make my kids' night by telling them that they can sleep in tomorrow (not that my son will sleep in--he was up at 6:45 this morning). To beat Facebook and Google and Apple.
Saint Marty wants to be Dumbledore. Or at least Dobby the house elf: "Master has a snow day tomorrow!" (Apologies to non-Harry Potter fans.)
ADDENDUM: School is cancelled. My daughter just texted me with the news. For those keeping score: Technology 1-Daddy 0.
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