SNOW SAM and ON A MISSAM are watching snow fall.
SNOW SAM: What happens if I don’t pay a ticket?
ON A MISSAM: What kind of ticket?
SNOW: A windshield ticket.
ON A: For what?
SNOW: Parking.
ON A: Parking? How?
SNOW: Poorly?
ON A is skeptical.
SNOW: Untimely.
ON A: …What?
SNOW: Illegally.
ON A: Illegally?
SNOW: Yeah.
ON A: So you got a parking ticket.
SNOW: Yeah.
ON A: Why?
SNOW: There is a winter parking ban.
ON A: Really?
SNOW: Yeah, like what do they expect us to do during the winter? Just keep driving constantly? Like in shifts? Do they realize what that would do to the ozone?
ON A: No, you just can’t park within town limits—
SNOW: Oh, okay, we’ll all just use that parking garage in Norwich that totally exists and we’ll just schlep back over the river in time for our 10As?
ON A: —at night. You can’t park in Hanover at night.
SNOW: Oh, because someone’s gonna break into our car? Or, like, the gas will freeze and then explode?
ON A: I don’t think that’s a concern.
SNOW: Then why can’t I park in front of Phi Delt at night like I do every other night of the dumb year?
ON A: Plows.
SNOW: Please don’t spit at me.
ON A: Did I spit?
SNOW: No.
ON A: Did you think I said “please”?
SNOW: Please?
ON A: Plows?
SNOW: Plows don’t make me pay my ticket.
ON A: No, the cops do.
SNOW: On behalf of the plows?
ON A: On behalf of Those For Snow Removal everywhere. TFSR.
SNOW: That’s so annoying.
ON A: You have to pay it.
SNOW: Is that true though?
ON A: Of course it’s true. They’ll impound your car.
SNOW: But what if I refuse to do it for, you know, for ideological reasons?
ON A: Ideological reasons?
SNOW: Civil disobedience.
ON A: I don’t think that’s a valid excuse.
SNOW: I mean the act of parking as civil disobedience.
ON A: And not paying the fine?
SNOW: An extension thereof.
ON A: How is parking on the street when it snows civil disobedience?
SNOW: I’m protecting the pristine snow.
ON A: You’re on frat row, not in a forest.
SNOW: Exactly, which is why it’s more important there than anywhere else to not allow man’s disruption of nature’s snowy serenity.
ON A: Okay, you’re taking this up with the wrong person.
SNOW: I refuse to make it easier for those ground-scraping dirt-lovers to take away the snow that I park near.
ON A: You really gotta talk to the town about this.
SNOW: If they’re gonna try to ban winter, I’ll ban them from giving me tickets.
ON A: It really doesn’t work that way.
SNOW: You are seriously being so passive.
ON A: No I’m not. You’re being too aggressive.
SNOW: How are you not upset about this? Everyone should be protesting!
ON A: I don’t know if you’ll find much support for your...cause.
SNOW: You think people don’t like winter?
ON A: I think people like winter the most when they’re able to move about and function in it.
SNOW: Do you realize how much blood they spill every winter?
ON A: Who is they? The plows?
SNOW: Plows what?
ON A: Whose blood?
SNOW: What blood?
ON A: You said they spill blood.
SNOW: No I didn’t.
ON A: Yes you did.
SNOW: That doesn’t make any sense.
ON A: Look, like nine lines up. It says you said “blood”.
SNOW: Maybe he wrote it down wrong?
ON A: Who?
SNOW: Sam?
ON A: Me?
SNOW: No, the other one. Sam the writer of this column Sam.
ON A: Who?
We hear the crackle and pop of metatheater.
SAM THE WRITER OF THIS COLUMN SAM: Me.
SNOW: Did you write it down wrong?
SAM THE WRITER OF THIS COLUMN SAM: What down?
SNOW: Blood.
SAM THE WRITER OF THIS COLUMN SAM: No, you said blood.
SNOW: I did?
SAM THE WRITER OF THIS COLUMN SAM: Yeah.
SNOW: Oh. I meant salt.
ON A: Oh.
SAM THE WRITER OF THIS COLUMN SAM: Oh. Anything else?
SNOW: Nope. Go back to omniscience.
A quieter crackle and a pop.
SNOW: Do you realize how much salt they spill every winter?
ON A: I guess I don’t.
SNOW: They use more salt on roads than they consume.
ON A: Who’s they?
SNOW: They, you know, like humanity.
ON A: Humanity?
SNOW: Yeah. Society in general uses eight percent of manufactured salt for roads. Society in general eats only six percent.
ON A: Wow.
SNOW: Crazy, right?
ON A: I wonder what they do with the other 86% of salt.
SNOW: I don’t know, salt water or something.
ON A: I don’t think salt water counts as manufactured.
SNOW: I mean when they make it.
ON A is confused.
SNOW: You wouldn’t get it.
ON A: So you’re protesting salt use?
SNOW: And plows.
ON A: And plows. Anything else?
SNOW: Heated driveways. Windshield fluid. Shovels.
ON A: Shovels.
SNOW: And snowmen.
ON A: And snowmen.
SNOW: And anything that alters, prevents, mitigates or otherwise threatens winter.
ON A: You really like winter, don’t you?
SNOW: I really like winter.
ON A: What do you feel about, like, piles of snow?
SNOW: Is it natural?
ON A: The plow put it there.
SNOW: It should be redistributed.
ON A: I was thinking the same.
SNOW: Why?
ON A: I wanna get under them.
SNOW: What for?
ON A: I’m looking for my bike.
SNOW: Where is it?
ON A: I’m not sure exactly.
SNOW: How are we gonna find it?
ON A: I was thinking hair dryers?
SNOW: Hair dryers are very anti-snow.
ON A: Then… shovels?
SNOW: Is is that important?
ON A: Very.
SNOW: Okay then. Fine.
ON A: Okay?
SNOW: Let’s find some shovels.
