Culture

It's a little after four on a recent weekday afternoon and Carly Fristoe stands over what must look like a sea of green felt, surveying her next shot – what could be the winning stroke to close out her match against classmate Devon Holler, who hovers nearby hoping the match will be extended. Just a few feet away, patrons have packed the bar area and are chatting noisily over cocktails and post-work beers, oblivious that Fristoe and Holler are making state high school sports history.
Fristoe seems equally unfazed by the din of the bar area as she measures her shot, checking the angle with her cue before bending down and drawing on the eight ball. It's then that I'm reminded that this isn't the national nine-ball finals at the MGM Grand Casino as Fristoe scratches, stuttering forward with her cue instead of crisply and deliberately striking the ball. The tip of her cue rolls off the top of the white ball, which moves maybe an inch. Fristoe shrugs her shoulders and steps away and Holler moves in for the kill placing the cue ball behind the eight ball and cracking it into the corner pocket.

“It snowed.”
I opened one eye to see my wife standing in our bedroom, hair half done, toothbrush in hand and about 47 times more excited than is appropriate for 7 a.m. on a Tuesday. I propped myself up in bed, pried open the shutters and gradually both of my eyelids to verify that it had, in fact, snowed. My verification wasn't because my wife is a liar – which she isn't, and especially not about meteorological events – but rather because I'd come to understand that winter ended a good month ago, giving way to temperatures in the mid 50s and the thought of snowfall had been shelved deep in my mind until next November. Also, it couldn't be snowing. There was nothing about snow in the forecast. Not on KTVZ, not on the Weather Channel, not on the NOAA website, not on that goddamn Weatherbug that chirps from the corner of my laptop despite repeated uninstallation attempts.