Monday, December 5, 2011

Happy Holidays, Natural Disaster Style

Last week, the Santa Ana winds tore through Pasadena and kicked the crap out of my neighborhood.  It was a natural disaster in a major city, but the media treated it like a bad traffic jam.  They did not even try to give the storm a cool name, like Windocalypse or Stormy.  

You know why the media basically ignored Windocalpyse?  Because it hit suddenly and with unexpected intensity - so the media did not get a chance to go into pre-storm panic mode and predict The Coming of the End of Days.  And, fortunately, no one died - so the media did not get to speculate about the death toll.  Who wants to report on power outages and fallen trees?  BORING.

But Windocalypse was a natural disaster, and it caused a lot of damage.  Thousands lost power for days.  In Pasadena, more than 400 trees fell, landing on houses, fences and cars.  The streets were literally dammed with trees, as if hoards of devil beavers had attacked Pasadena during the night.  

The City of Pasadena has done a five star job cleaning up the mess.  My only complaint is that I have forfeited my right to complain about the City (and come on, who doesn't like to complain about the government?)  

While I was taking a walk in my neighborhood this weekend, I saw this holiday sign:


Let's just zoom in on the sign:


My neighbors lost their white picket fence during the storm, and now they are wishing everyone "Happy Holidays."  Or are there?

I cannot decipher the intended tone for this message.  Do the owners mean "happy holidays" as in "let's hang the stockings, drink some egg nog and count our blessings - we're so lucky we just lost this old fence"?  Or, do they mean "happy holidays" as in "we maxed out our credit cards on Black Friday, Grandma Edith started drinking again during the storm, we forgot to renew our homeowner's policy last month, so Santa can take our picket fence and shove it up his you-know-what"?

My Inner Cynic tells me it's the latter.  But, in the spirit of the season, I've decided it must be the former.  Maybe Santa will bring them a new picket fence for Christmas.

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