If I told you I’d pay you half a million dollars per year, give you full benefits, you only had to work a few hours per week, and you didn’t even have to be good at your job, would you take it? Damn straight you would.
TV weathermen in LA have six-figure salaries, sometimes upwards of a half million dollars or more. The best part? They don’t even have to be right. If they’re wrong, everyone just says “Oh, well it’s the weather, it’s unpredictable.” You know what else is unpredictable? Just about everything. If doctors misdiagnose someone, they get sued. If restaurant employees screw up too many orders, they get fired. If psychiatrists aren’t smart enough to treat their patients, they do their own TV show. Sorry to the many rabid Dr. Phil fans, but just because you say something authoritatively and tie some mediocre southern metaphor to it, that doesn’t make it correct (or as Phil would put it, “That don’t hit the cow’s spit bucket!”).
I realize the weather is unpredictable, but don’t we pay you and other “meteorologists” all that money for something other than a guess? Shouldn’t you have come up with a decent way to predict it by now? For Christ’s sake, scientists are mapping the human genome and we can’t figure out whether it’s going to rain in Boise?* The amount of times weathermen incorrectly predict the weather is appalling. Last time I was in school, if we got 30% correct, we were sent to a “special” class with pictures of kittens on the wall and plenty of nap time.
I don’t necessarily have anything to offer the world of weather forecasting. I don’t have a better prediction system or any answers, I just can’t get past the fact that the guy on TV for five minutes reading off a prompter that may or may not be accurate is making as much as the person responsible for organ transplants or surgeries or third-nipple-ectomies (thanks again Dr. Mantlebaum!). Maybe if we started a system of punishment for incorrect forecasts, they would try a little harder. Here’s an appropriate punishment system I thought of while sloshing home through the rain that a certain someone forgot to tell me was coming. Hopefully this catches on:
First incorrect prediction: weatherman is docked $10,000 pay. Oh shit! Better make that Evian a Crystal Geyser.
Second incorrect prediction: weatherman must appear on TV the next day wearing an ‘I’m with stupid’ t-shirt with an arrow pointing up.
Third incorrect prediction: weatherman is sent to the public stockades. What? We don’t have those anymore? Jesus, what is wrong with this country? How about public stoning? No? Okay, just take away his convertible.
Incorrect rain prediction: if anyone sees weatherman at a picnic, sunbathing, baseball game or any other outdoor “good weather” event, they are free to shoot him with super-soaker water guns.
Incorrect snow prediction: news anchors drunkenly use weatherman as urinal and “write their name” on weatherman’s face.
Incorrect wind prediction: weatherman is forced to work in Kansas for two weeks. Side-Note: weathermen already working in Kansas receive no punishment, we feel bad enough for you already.
Incorrect storm prediction: force weatherman to do a “field report” from the eye of the next major hurricane.
The ball is in your court local news stations. Hold your weathermen accountable…or at least don’t pay them such a ridiculous salary—you are aware there are kids in Sudan that haven’t eaten in five days right? Coincidentally that was the last time it rained in Sudan, so they were able to get some fruit that fell from a tree. Side note: the local weatherman did not predict that rainstorm.
*It’s not. Put away those goulashes Pat and Irene, your relentless boredom will be a dry boredom today.
I'll be back next week with my annual Top 10 list of the best albums and songs of the year. You won't want to miss this, unless you hate music, or you hate me. In either of those cases, that's a shame.
Snake Alley Song of the Day: Fake Problems - Soulless
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