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About the Author
Gina Barreca is a professor of English and feminist theory at the University of Connecticut. Her books include They Used to Call Me Snow White, but I Drifted; Perfect Husbands and Other Fairy Tales; Babes in Boyland; and, with Gene Weingarten of The Washington Post, I'm With Stupid. She's written or edited other books on vice, Victorians and sex, American humor, the erotics of instruction, The Sopranos, women's humor, and Italian-American literature. She will blog about teaching, sex, humor, money, publishing, ambition, books, marriage, envy (professional and personal), politics (professional and personal), aging, and cartoons.
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The Weather Channel
The Weather Channel has emerged as the Other Woman in our house: in terms of my husband’s attention, it is my fiercest competition.
Although I can accept the fact that I am not permitted to interrupt important weather-event forecasts, I put my foot down at “Storm Stories.” I will not watch old weather; the weather of the past does not carry the weight of the ages with it.
If it did, it would be on the History Channel.
Perhaps I should consider myself lucky. Facing the reality of an actual 19-year-old named Bambi would be worse than facing a virtual Heather Tesch, weekday morning Weather Channel anchor. After all, Heather is personable and bright, not to mention holding the American Meteorological Society Seal of Approval. She is also based in Atlanta which, conveniently, is far enough away for her to remain virtual.
It isn’t Heather in particular who attracts Michael, anyway. It might be easier to understand if it were; when I looked up Heather Tesch’s bio, it mentioned that her dog is named “Doppler” which is clever enough to precipitate a crush. But no, my husband simply likes watching the weather. A lot.
And this is the oddest part: He feels a need to get the weather on television even when he can look out the window, observe, and assess the conditions personally (“It is sunny”; “It is raining”; “It is nighttime and we are home until noon tomorrow so it doesn’t really matter what it is doing outside anyhow” are all reasonable responses, none of which are acceptable to him.)
I wonder why the Weather Channel holds the fascination it does not only for Michael but for many otherwise sane and balanced men. If there is a whole gang of women who share the same obsession, I haven’t run into them — and I run into a whole lot of women.
“I might turn on the Weather Channel if I’m traveling for work,” shrugs Elaine, a marketing executive who also lives with a weather addict. “But Martin leaves it on as background. The on-line version is bookmarked on his computer. He likes to watch the tiny map version where he can see the whole country at once. I think he does it to gloat.”
Ah, the Gloat Factor.
I first encountered the Gloat Factor when visiting an aged uncle in Palm Beach. The Weather Channel was on 18 hours a day as a constant affirmation that he did the right thing by moving to Florida.
“They have freezing rain,” he would mutter with a barely repressed sense of glee. “The commute will be just terrible, terrible.” He’d shake his head but you’d see the hint of a smile. Then he would go outside and breathe deeply the warm and fragrant air. It was not enough that he was comfortable; for the full effect of pleasure, it was necessary that somewhere in the northeast, somebody was decidedly uncomfortable. Only then he could relax.
I noticed, not long after, that while watching the national weather, Michael would say every morning without fail “Look, it’s raining in Portland.” We’d gone to Oregon when I was giving a lecture and spent four days soaking wet. He’d never forgiven the place and learned to take daily satisfaction from the reliability of Portland’s truly lousy climate.
On bad days, Michael murmurs “It’s raining in Portland” as if to suggest that however bad things are here, they would only be worse there. This, presumably, is his version of the counting of blessings.
Michael is not satisfied, however, with the report from just one station, however amusing or accurate. When I ask why he flips from one to another in order to get the weather, he explains that he wants an overview to inform his own judgment. Maybe that’s it: if he “gets” the weather, he feels as if he owns it — that the weather could well be improved by his interest.
As for me, I’ll only watch the Weather Channel when Jim Cantore is on. He can tell me which way the wind is blowing any old time.
Posted at 06:32:52 AM on November 18, 2008 | All postings by Gina BarrecaComments
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Like your little town has ANYTHING on brilliant Portland! How dare you!
Portland RULES!
— Oregon Sally · Nov 18, 07:00 AM · #
Men watching the Weather channel, or Bass Masters, is comparable to women watching the Home & Garden channel. It’s background noise.
— Bob · Nov 18, 08:00 AM · #
Perhaps the only gloat factor I have since relocating from Connecticut to South Carolina would be the weather!
— C · Nov 18, 08:46 AM · #
After growing up in cold weather in the Rocky Mountain West, I have pursued a distinctly warmer academic career. This includes stints in New Orleans, Los Angeles, Tempe and San Jose. There is a reason so many academics apply for jobs in California (or Florida, or Hawai’i): the Gloat Factor! Otherwise, we’d all be dying to live in the Plains – with howling winter storms and tornados.
— UC Prof · Nov 18, 11:36 AM · #
When we lived in south Florida they only showed the weather news from the “North” since the forecast was always the same—hot, humid, 50% chance of rain—unless a hurricane was coming. In Boston we never watch because it is likely to change in the next 5 minutes!
— jia · Nov 18, 12:19 PM · #
Better the weather and Heather Tesch than the girl named Bambi..(what is the connection between girls whose names are desserts or Disney characters and promiscuity?— it definitely exists). Plus husbands, like Michael, watching the weather channel and Heather Tesch allows us women to pause Brad Pitt as he’s lying against the truck in Thelma and Louise or to turn on ER reruns just to see George Clooney in scrubs without feeling any sort of guilt.
— "call me Cat... Kitty-Cat" · Nov 18, 04:31 PM · #
“Call me”: I love you.
Rain or Shine.
— Not perplexed · Nov 18, 10:19 PM · #
My wife, a midwesterner, is addicted to The Weather Channel, too, and would prefer to watch it on serious weather days here in St Louis rather than just look out the window. When we moved here from New York several years ago, I marvelled at how much time weather takes on the local newscasts. Me? I’m from San Diego, where weather is not usually an issue. I think this weather obsession is truly a midwestern phenomenon rather than a gender-specific one. My wife’s family, almost all women, are similarly obsessed, though my wife’s obsession outstrips theirs.
— M. Burke · Nov 19, 08:14 AM · #
I’ve heard the Weather Channel called “MTV for old people.” Ouch!
— Lori A. Schwabenbauer · Nov 19, 08:57 AM · #
My father spent a lot of time watching the clouds, sun, moon, etc. He would then report, based upon his observations and which of his joints was hurting, what the weather would be like the next day. I think the Weather Channel is my generation’s equivalent of joint pain.
— Baldy · Nov 19, 09:19 AM · #
The great radio comedian, Fred Allen, said, “Southern California is a great place to live…if you’re an orange.”
On the other hand, there is something called SAD, or Seasonal Affective Disorder, and it’s especially prevalent in the Pacific Northwest. Is Portland’s suicide rate as high as Seattle’s?
— Mr. Wiki · Nov 19, 10:27 AM · #
Gina, please come visit Oregon again during the summer. Portland is nice then, and so are Corvallis (home of the mighty OSU Beavers) and our gorgeous coastline. However, if you’re allergic to being wet, Portland is definitely not the place to be in the winter. OTOH, that’s why it’s so green and lush during the summer. Really—you should come visit during the sun season!
— diogenes · Nov 19, 10:39 AM · #
Well, I love the Weather Channel (I even watch Storm Stories) but I really love Weather Radio. I live in the snow zone and it was what sold me on the Subaru I bought 8 years ago; when I had to get a new car, I was very distressed to learn that the new models did not have it. Looking out the window is not enough—you need to know what’s coming!
— woman who likes weather · Nov 19, 10:43 AM · #
I – and my wife – don’t like the Weather Channel because when we switch to it, the chances are over 90% that they will NOT be presenting the weather!
— phiwilli · Nov 19, 11:32 AM · #
I am a woman who considers herself a weather geek, and watches the weather channel every day. Until the weather channel came into existence I had no understanding of where and how weather formed. Sure one can look at the window to see if it is raining, but watching the weather channel carefully one learns to assess whether it will rain five days from now. In 1988, when The Weather Channel hosted the first televised panels on climate change, I moved from just a weather geek, to a serious climate geek.
— sue · Nov 19, 12:24 PM · #