The Iowa Hyperbole

I was looking at my profile in this blog tonight. I nearly changed the portion that read, "hater of Iowa winters (I think that's what really started all this)." It's not that that has changed, because I still groan thinking about what we endured January through March regarding snow, ice, driving in it or being housebound because of it. I wanted to change that to "hater of Iowa's freakish natural disasters" because it was brought to my attention that not only did we have a heinous winter, we also had an earthquake and the now infamous "historic" Floods of 2008.

It all reminded me, though, of a phrase Eric and I coined three and a half years ago when we first moved here. It seemed that no matter what, it was always hotter than usual, or milder than usual, or colder than usual- everything was always bigger, better, worse, or just more than usual. For instance, the very day we moved to Iowa was the end of the a heat wave that was hotter than usual. The three, cold-as-hell weeks after Thanksgiving that year, where the temperature was literally NEVER above 15 degrees, were colder than usual, followed by the next two months that were milder than usual...you get my drift. I mean, I think this year, the Hawkeye football team has even had more trouble with the law than usual.

And so it seems that this year, 2008, Mother Nature has been shittier than usual to the just-okay people of Iowa, and all of us unfortunate enough to have moved here. Although I'm happy to sleep in my own bed and to have a roof over my head, I will still have to drive through what looks like a blast zone from a nuclear bomb every day to get to and from school. Seriously, I nervously drove across the 8th Avenue bridge last night- you know, that one that I said people were lining up on to take pictures of the railroad trestle two weeks ago when we first came back to Iowa from Oklahoma only to have it submerged by feet of water two days later- and there was still no power, a funky smell hung in the air like the tide had just gone out, and everything under the four foot level was demolished.

Enough, already, Iowa. There are still six months left in the year. What else can happen that's extraordinary? There was already an EF-5 tornado- I guess there's still time for more of that. Could we have a crispier than usual fall season? Will the leaves be more vibrant than usual in October? Is it possible the Hawks will suck more than they did last year? Will the Regents finally get mad and fire Kirk Ferentz, who, if he worked in the South, would have been fired years ago for his record. Could my fall suck this year academically more than it did last year?

...on that note, I should get studying. I do have comps in about eight weeks, and if I fail those, things would truly suck.