The Four Horsemen of the Ice Apocalypse

A Survival Guide

By now, many of us are somewhere between searching the utility closet for a flashlight and negotiating delivery tips with Grubhub, bracing for what I’ve come to call—only half-joking—the Ice Apocalypse. Growing up on the farm, we called it winter. But when a storm stretches across half the country, time gets strange, nerves get jumpy, and ordinary inconveniences take on mythic proportions.

In moments like this, it helps to name what’s actually riding in with the cold. Not forecasts. Horsemen.

The First Horseman

The Meteorologist from Oz—a mash-up of Poseidon, Kronos, and Medusa, all rolled into one giant floating head. Only, instead of Medusa’s snakes, this head sports eyebrows worthy of Leonid Brezhnev. Secretly, we are being hypnotized. From our screens great and small, Oz prophesies icy doom. But the details are always revealed later, after just enough anxiety has been seeded to make us pliable for online shopping.

Speaking of shopping….

The Second Horseman

The Grocery Czar—a.k.a. Jeff Bezos, whose bald head, by the way, bears a close resemblance to Oz.

Coincidence?

I think not.

Bezos’s Whole Foods shape-shifts into Holy Foods, as shoppers race around the store grabbing offerings for the viewing-party ritual of watching Oz prance to-and-fro in front of the weather map.

This shopping experience is also a chance to practice “turning the other cheek.” Yesterday, I caught a teenager in the act of removing a package of chicken drumsticks from my grocery cart when he thought I wasn’t looking.

He immediately dropped the package back into my cart. Then, I gave it to him.

Go in peace, my child.

The Third Horseman

Yoda—Lord of the Group Text Thread—whose cryptic missives began at 2:14 a.m. three days before Meteorology Oz even knows about the storm, and will run continuously between now and Groundhog’s Day.

• “Coming, the storm is.”

• “Prepared, you are not.”

• “Cold it will be. Very.”

• “Hoard eggs, you must not.”

• “Charged, your phone must be.”

• “Candles, you should find.”

• “Calm, you must remain. Panic helps no one.”

• “Still, panic you will.”

• “Wrong before, they were.”

• “Right this time, they might be.”

Yoda means well. But clarity, this is not.

The Fourth Horseman

Cabin Fever—It arrives without spectacle. No eyebrows, no algorithms, no group texts. It wraps us in a liminal blanket, time briefly paused. Pajamas become a worldview. We bake bread. Cabin Fever reminds us that winter has always been about water’s ever-changing presence.

If you are somewhere in the path of the Ice Apocalypse, the Four Horsemen grant you an official permission slip to slow down. Turn off the television. Storms pass. Horsemen ride on. Tea will get cold, then reheated, then cold again.

It’s winter.