Mental Statistics

You know how a lot of people can't get their heads around the concept of an infinitely stable probability? Like flipping a coin. Every time you flip it it's a 50/50 chance of getting heads. But after a stream of heads, most people expect tails to come up, just to even things out.

This is perfectly normal, I think. Where in nature do you find infinitely stable probabilities? In reality, we deal with finite resources. There's food hanging from two trees. If you keep taking food from one tree, there will be less left. After a while, it's a better bet to go for the other one. Our brains were not initially built for modern card games, which is what gets compulsive gamblers neck-deep in debt. They think if they just stick to their guns, their luck will change...simply because it has been bad for a while.

I'm a compulsive gambler with the weather.

I bore with it when it was 15 degrees in early December. I kept the whining to a minimum when we were driving car-sledding in 36 inches of snow in Jersey. Because it would all end soon, right? With such weird weather in early winter, Mother Nature would have to make up for it later. Maybe we'll have a warmer January, I thought.

Woke up this morning to a fresh blanket of snow. Weather.com says there will be more piling up over the next few days. And the week after that. And the week after that....

And it's still ten friggin' degrees below the average! Which is better than 30 like in December, but come on. I've paid my dues. My gloves are ruined. My jeans are stretched out from shoving them over leggings. And in ten minutes, I still have to go out to stand while frozen water falls on my head and wind kills the feeling in my extremities and the bus crunches carefully through town.

Until then, I'll just sit here refreshing the weather.com page, hoping those numbers change in my favor. Come ooooon, 30s. Mama needs a new place to live.