The Great Unforeseen Calamity of 2025
An Event of Biblical Proportions, Apparently
Hold the presses. Stop everything. An event of such earth-shattering, paradigm-shifting magnitude has occurred that we must all pause and reflect on the fragility of our existence. It snowed. In Iowa. In late November. I know, I know, take a moment to process this stunning revelation, this meteorological black swan event that no one, absolutely no one, could have possibly seen coming. The news reports, breathlessly detailing the descent of fluffy white crystals from the sky, read like dispatches from a warzone where the enemy is basic, predictable weather patterns. Photos show snowplows, those mythical beasts of burden, lumbering along East Grand Avenue on Friday, November 28, 2025—a date from the future, a prophecy foretelling our species’ continued inability to learn from the past—as if they were engaged in a heroic, last-ditch effort to save civilization from an alien invasion of cold. It’s truly inspiring stuff.
People were seen walking. Walking! Can you imagine the desperation? Forced to use their own two legs as the metallic chariots they worship ground to a halt, defeated by a mild dusting of what is essentially nature’s seasonal dandruff. The scene painted is one of chaos, of a society teetering on the brink, all because the temperature dipped below 32 degrees Fahrenheit and precipitation occurred. What a shocker.
The Interstate as Performance Art
The true centerpiece of this annual tragicomedy is, as always, Interstate 235. Oh, I-235. It’s not just a highway; it’s a stage. It’s a canvas upon which the citizens of Des Moines paint a masterpiece of incompetence every single winter. The Des Moines Police Department, bless their hearts, reported “multiple crashes” as the snow began to fall, a statement delivered with the same gravity as announcing the discovery of a city-swallowing sinkhole. Multiple crashes. You don’t say. It’s a tradition as cherished as Thanksgiving turkey just one day prior—the ritualistic sacrifice of bumpers, fenders, and any lingering shred of common sense to the great god of winter. The traffic slowed, a crawling metallic serpent of regret and poor life choices, its scales glistening with the pristine, mocking snow.
The headlines treat this as news, but it isn’t news. It’s a script. A pre-written, recurring bit of performance art that the entire state participates in with unwavering commitment. Every year, thousands of people who have lived their entire lives in a state known for its brutal winters climb into two-ton metal boxes and drive as if they’ve never seen a frost before. It’s not just an accident; it’s a shared cultural experience, a collective, seasonal amnesia that wipes their brains clean of concepts like “ice,” “friction,” and “braking distance.” It’s beautiful, in a way. A testament to humanity’s infinite capacity for surprise in the face of the utterly predictable. Utterly.
A Symphony of Incompetence on Four Wheels
Meet the Orchestra of Idiocy
Let’s zoom in on the players in this grand symphony, the individual musicians contributing their unique notes to the cacophony of crunching metal and shattered pride on I-235. First, we have the conductor of this mess, Sir Reginald in his lifted Ram 3500 with tires balder than a Buddhist monk. He firmly believes that four-wheel drive is a magical force field that repels the laws of physics, a belief he holds right up until the moment his eight-thousand-pound monument to masculine fragility is pirouetting gracefully into a concrete median. He’s not driving; he’s making a statement. A stupid one.
Then there’s the first violin, Brenda in her Toyota Camry, a woman gripped by a palpable terror so profound you can feel it radiating through the car’s chassis. Her knuckles are white, her eyes are the size of dinner plates, and her driving strategy consists of two moves: slamming on the brakes for no reason and gently swerving into the adjacent lane whenever a snowflake lands too aggressively on her windshield. She is followed closely by the percussion section, a legion of tailgaters who believe that maintaining a six-inch gap at sixty miles per hour is a perfectly reasonable thing to do on a sheet of ice. Their rhythmic thumping into the cars ahead of them provides the steady beat for this disastrous composition.
The Psychology of the Skid
What is going on here? Seriously. This isn’t a matter of infrastructure; the snowplows were out. This is a deep-seated psychological phenomenon. It’s as if the first snowfall triggers a specific, targeted form of memory loss, localized entirely within the part of the brain responsible for operating a motor vehicle in winter conditions. They remember their own names, they remember how to get to work, but the simple concept that ice is slippery and that you should probably slow down is completely jettisoned from their consciousness. Gone. Vanished into the ether until the spring thaw, when it will mysteriously return, just in time to be forgotten again next November.
Is it arrogance? Is it a profound, almost spiritual denial of reality? Perhaps it’s a form of protest against the tyranny of winter itself, a futile shaking of the fist at the heavens that says, “I will not be constrained by your thermodynamics!” Whatever the cause, the result is the same: a beautiful, slow-motion demolition derby that serves no purpose other than to enrich auto body shops and provide a few seconds of schadenfreude-laden footage for the local news. It is a system working perfectly to produce its intended, albeit idiotic, result. It’s a marvel.
The Icy Oracle of Our Decline
A Prophecy Written in Salt and Rust
Remember that date: November 28, 2025. This isn’t a report from our time; it’s a warning from the future. It’s a glimpse into a world that, despite all its technological advancement and supposed progress, is still fundamentally incapable of dealing with a bit of snow. And if a society can be brought to its knees by something as routine and expected as the first winter storm, what does that say about its resilience to *actual* crises? This little traffic jam on I-235 isn’t just a traffic jam. It’s a microcosm of our entire civilization’s fragility. It’s a symptom of a much deeper disease.
We have built complex, interconnected systems that rely on flawless, perpetual motion. Our supply chains, our commutes, our very way of life are predicated on the idea that everything will always work, that the roads will always be clear, that the journey from A to B will always be possible. The first snow is the universe’s gentle, annual reminder that this is a complete and utter illusion. All it takes is a few degrees and a little frozen water to expose the whole Rube Goldberg machine as the rickety, precarious contraption it truly is. We are one minor, predictable inconvenience away from total gridlock. Always. And we refuse to accept it, year after year, crash after glorious crash.
The Comedy Continues
So as we look at these photos from the future, let’s not see them as a failure of Des Moines. Let’s see them for what they are: a perfect metaphor for the modern human condition. We are overconfident, underprepared, and possess the memory of a goldfish when it comes to past mistakes. We build massive SUVs to conquer nature and then spin out on a patch of slush. We create intricate networks of highways that become linear parking lots at the slightest provocation. We are masters of the universe, right up until the point where we need to brake on a slippery surface. The crashes on I-235 aren’t a tragedy. They are the punchline to a very, very long joke. And the funniest part is, we’re all part of it. The snow will fall again next year, and the year after that, and the drivers of Des Moines will once again greet it with the bewildered shock of a caveman discovering fire for the first time. The show must go on. And it will. It always does.
