NEW YORK – AP -
Following on the heels of its highly successful efforts to name winter
storms, The Weather Channel has decided to begin naming additional inconveniences
caused by large named storms. The first of these potentially harrowing disaster
scenarios has been christened, “Ezekiel,” and refers to several somewhat large
piles of snow in and around the pillars and creeping in on the edges of the
parking lot at 7 High Street in Huntington, NY. A rapid-fire exchange between
managers at BZ Media. the building’s largest tenant, revealed the extent of the
hysteria and the problem, as meanwhile, #Ezekiel began trending on Twitter.
“I don’t know if I’ll be able to park there if the plows
have pushed snow up next to the pillars on the north side,” wrote a worried George
Gupta, IT Director at the company. “Given the potential cold weather for the
next few weeks, which would lock that snow and slush in there…sheesh…the entire
staff may have to work at home for a few weeks, or, even until Spring” he
continued.
HR director Stacy Burris and company president Ted Bahr
tried to calm Gupta down, as Bahr noted that he was already parked under the
building and that 23 cars – including his - were all comfortably parked in the 23
spaces normally available. He further suggested that employees “should just
relax, drive carefully and get into work when they can.”
Despite Bahr’s eyewitness account, the Weather Channel’s top
four lead stories featured headlines that brought the potential disaster into
sharp relief, “Parking Problem Ezekiel Ready to SuperSize,” “Employees to be
Stranded, Forced to Work Out of Homes for Weeks!” “How YOU can Prepare for Zeke,” and “The
Seven Cutest Little Kittens named Ezekiel.”
Town of Huntington Supervisor Frank Petrone, running for his
sixth term, declined to refer to the slight dusting in the covered lot as a
named parking problem calling it “crass commercialism and an attempt by the
Weather Channel to label every meteorological event just so they can get more
eyeballs looking at their bizarre diet and debt-consolidation advertising.”
Highway Supervisor William Naughton shook off that notion however, and freely
used the term, claiming that, “my front loaders have got a few surprises in
store for Ezekiel.”
A Weather Channel spokesperson said that David Kenny, CEO of
the company, was so enamored of the success of the recent storm-naming of Nemo,
that he ordered the successor to the program rolled out immediately. The
selection of Biblical prophets as names for parking, traffic and other man-made
structure inconveniences attributable to weather was defended by the
spokesperson, “Ezekiel predicted the destruction of Jerusalem in 592 BC and the
subsequent construction of the Millenia Temple, indicating that these prophet
guys knew a lot about construction, as well as disasters.”
The Weather Channel is said to be planning names for an
expanding list of life’s little annoyances including:
First Winter Frost Larch (named after trees)
Data Loss Kevin (named
after the first names of characters played by Macauley Culkin)
Bad Hair Day Winkles (named after extremely cute kittens)
