Things are warming up in the Southwest. And the OmegaFamily is to blame. We guarantee that there will be no more miserable below-zero freezing spells in the next few years.
It's not because of global climate change, which I covered in a post about the National Arbor Day Foundation coming out with a new hardiness zone map, a post which further included various and sundry links to animations and kewl graphics and news articles to support global warming.
You see, I left something out of that post.
It's our fault.
More specifically, in the past few years, it was OmegaDad's fault.
And I wince to admit it, but it will be my fault for the next few years.
About three years ago, OmegaDad went to a ski sale in Small Mountain University Town. While there, he found a wicked pair of SNS-binding cross-country skis, complete with poles, for an absurd price...the reason being that they were last year's cutting-edge skis, and thus obsolete.
He caved. He purchased them.
And immediately, our awesome winters disappeared. He has gotten to use those skis twice since he purchased them. See? It was his fault!
Then came some recent snows and the icy cold snap. I had forgotten the dreadful OmegaFamily Curse that was laid upon the global climate system, and was much more concerned by the fact that OmegaDotter didn't have warm gloves, gaiters, warm socks, and other good winter paraphernalia to keep her from having icy cold hands after a few hours of playing in the snow.
So I got online and purchased said paraphernalia.
They've started arriving. Some very nice cozy kids' Polartec gloves were delivered to our porch yesterday.
The problem? Well, it's that dad-gummed curse. See, as soon as I sat down at the computer with my debit card in hand, the weather gods took notice. And now it's positively balmy. And it's going to stay balmy until OmegaDotter outgrows every single piece of winter equipment we have for her.
This is an excellent example of something called "magical thinking", which the New York Times recently wrote about, also known in my family as "contrary magic". Other examples are making sure you have a rain date for any picnic you plan (because the planning will surely cause it to rain on the picnic day unless you have a fallback date), never wishing ill upon someone else because "the karma always bounces back!", and knowing that the reason the xerox machine broke down is because you have a Very Important Meeting to attend, where you must give 25 people copies of your Very Important Paper. (Copy machines know these things, y'know. That's why you have to treat them nicely; if you don't, when crunch time comes, that copy machine will remember you, and get you.)
According to the article, "magical thinking" is much more pervasive and easy-to-provoke than one would think. Even in this hyper-technical age, a recent Harvard study showed that people could be induced to believe that their bad thoughts about a fellow research participant was what was causing (fake) pain.
But...even so...I must confess that the OmegaFamily is at fault for the recent warm, dry winters in the southwest. (And, by extension, the weird weather everywhere else, because global climate dynamics being what they are, you have to have weird weather elsewhere to ensure our balmy winters.) Please don't lynch us.
And please do leave me a comment with your most gnawing "magical thinking"...so I know we're not alone!
Technorati: Magical thinking
10 Comments:
-
At 1/25/2007 07:33:00 PM,
Space Mom said… -
At 1/25/2007 08:45:00 PM,
Third Mom said… -
At 1/25/2007 08:45:00 PM,
Miss Cellania said…Weird. This is the second post I’ve read this week on magical thinking, after years of not hearing the term. The other is an analysis of our president’s behavior.
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At 1/26/2007 06:26:00 AM,
said…Our family can take credit for the warm (until this morning) winter in the northeast. Husband busted his bum putting in an awesome radiant heating system last year. And my father in law purchased himself a brand new snowblower.
Ditto on not getting behind me in line.
Also - if I have to go out of town, especially if I have to be there by a specific time, my horse will have some sort of injury that requires a vet visit. Every.Single.Time. The night before we left for China I went to ride one last time, and we were leaving at 4:30AM. His eye was the size of a softball, and I did not leave the barn until midnight.
I had never heard of this 'magical thinking' - should be a good lunch time read
Erika -
At 1/26/2007 02:30:00 PM,
said… -
At 1/26/2007 08:02:00 PM,
Kate said…SpaceMom--Yeah, I was the main jinx to the Northwestern Wildcats the year they had no wins...
Third Mom--OmegaDad always says, "We have The Magic!!!" when we get into a line and it stops dead. Yes, jinxing is part of "magical thinking".
Miss C.--I think it was the NYTimes article that prompted people (like me!) to write about it.
Erika--So far, our "magic" doesn't extend to the pets. So far. Knock on wood! ;-)
SBird--Hah. I knew as soon as we started working on Dotter Secunda that the wait would stretch out...Unfortunately, even though we had to drop out from the China program, the wait continues on. I hope it speeds up a bit! -
At 1/26/2007 10:45:00 PM,
Granny J said… -
At 1/26/2007 10:48:00 PM,
Granny J said… -
At 2/25/2007 01:58:00 PM,
said…Halo!
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Bye
I'm a Buffalo Bills Fan. I actually believe that by yelling at the players on screen that I can change the outcome of the game. Those 4 Superbowls we lost? My fault. I leaned to the right in the first one to see the kick and the kick went WIDE RIGHT! Mea Culpa!
Sigh....