Wind burn immunity

Wind burn.

I never really understood the concept, and I still don’t today. Although, if there was ever such a thing, I’m pretty sure the name originally came from a Six Flags roller coaster.

Wind is so furious that you have to watch for aerial attacks by stray umbrellas, half-full chocolate sauce bottles and 14-pound Shakespeare anthologies. Unfortunately, the wind hasn’t heisted my Shakespeare book yet.

Weather channels have gone from predicting tornados to hit last night to consulting bird calls and wind chimes. When Champaign didn’t even get a single drop of rain, word had it they gave up the Doppler for the good ‘ole licking-the-finger technique.

Winds have reached the speed where contemporary methods of weather monitoring have become obsolete. Things are definitely wrong when dung can be smelt four miles upwind from the University’s official horse and swine laboratory.

However, this does not worry me in the slightest.

I am assured safety inside the newsroom because, as a general rule, nothing ever happens to news reporters! As a way to secretly palliate the effects of the stereotypical dismal monetary compensation, news reporters are granted lifetime hazard immunity. Almost all reporters die rich of natural causes and laughing at life insurance agents.

Today, I’ve seen all sorts of things. One kid’s hat blew into the middle of the street just seconds before entering the bus, and two trucks promptly ran over the hat. More than three consecutive blades of grass where green, two women were running with scissors and 29 chef’s aprons ended up in various trees on the quad.

So be careful today. WILL will be watching safely.