Word: snows
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...mystery. Well, perhaps "no services" is a bit of exaggeration. Cambridge is at least generous in providing Commissions on Animal Rights, Declarations of Nuclear Free Zone Status, replanting cermonies for Liberty Trees, and Domestic Partner Benefits (even for those, presumably, whose job it is to not plow the snow...
...Snow here is sort of like applesauce; it starts to brown shortly after being exposed to the air. In the case of applesauce, home ec teachers assure us, harmless enzymes are responsible for the discoloration. In the case of Cambridge, the browning results from the ubiquitous filth settling from exhaust pipes and copious dormitory fireplaces. Think of the snow as a facsimile of your lungs--and start worrying...
This browning is nowhere more noticeable than on the sidewalks, which have quickly come to resemble treacherous snowbound crevices, paved with slush. The snow gives rise to novel questions of etiquette. If the slushway is wide enough for only one, should you wait for the pedestrian 50 yards up ahead coming in the opposite direction to complete his journey before yourself embarking? Or should you choose to ignore him, and halfway along engage in an awkward Snow Dance--strangers in the snow, exchanging footing...
...Snow here also occasions questions of science. Namely, what is the exact composition of that unique substance which some have dubbed "Cambridge Slurpy?" I refer to the dark brown ooze with icy chunks which accumulates where, in most of the Industrialized World, the storm drains would...
...often no amount of knowledge will help. We have all seen those who, hemmed in at the corner of a sidewalk, have reached that perilous moment of realization: The snow is too soft to serve as a causeway, the puddle is too wide for evasion, too long for jumping and too deep for tip-toeing. It is here that Cantabrigians can be seen drawing on their knowledge of Kierkegaard, and taking a heedless leap of faith (faith in what, you ask? Not God, but in the cans of silicone they applied to their Timberlands, of course...