The problem with living in California is that people aren’t used to storms. So when we face a little bad weather and rain, people blow it out of proportion.

I’ve lived in Boston, where I was late for a class I was teaching because I had to dig my car out of a solid block of ice and snow. I’ve visited Chicago, where the wind feels like an x-ray when it sweeps off the lake. And I was born in Alaska. (I was too young to remember anything about Alaska, but it makes a good rhetorical capper to my point, so I’m mentioning it anyway.)

In California, though, people get bent out of shape whenever the sun is gone for more than a few hours. Grim-faced newscasters forecast the weather as though they’re announcing casualty lists: “I wish the news were better, my friends.”

And across the Bay Area, people catch the cue and speak to each other like they’re in disaster movies. “I--I’m going to work now, sweetheart.”

“Oh my God.”

“If I don’t make it back--”

“No, don’t say that! Don’t say that!”

“Please--let me just get through this. If I don’t make it back...you can defrost the meatloaf that’s in the freezer.”