As I write this the United States capital lays beneath a heavy mat of snow. Over the weekend more than twenty inches accumulated, now soaring to a lofty thirty-six inches as a second blizzard comes in to finish off any straggling homeless people. The latest installment I have named “Snowgasm,” as opposed to the Snowpocalypse and Snowmageddon we recently survived.

Meanwhile Vancouver, poised to host the Winter Olympics, is suffering from a dearth of snow. Patriotic Canadians have spent the last few days transporting snow drifts from neighboring regions. To keep the stuff from melting in balmy British Columbia, cylinders of dry ice are strategically slid into the snow transplants like crystallized rogaine. We live in the future.

On the east coast, the moment snow crystals drift downwards people instinctively march to grocery stores to stockpile bread, milk and toilet paper. These three staples are always in short supply, and their specific necessity continues to baffle me. I understand the food, but don’t comprehend the mad rush for toilet paper. Do most households only keep one spare roll at a time, or rely on nearby restaurants?

Following a herd instinct, I procure the same items, in order to participate in the egg fight or milk chugging contest, or whatever it is we’re preparing for. But the grocery store blitzkrieg remains alien. Oklahomans prepare for all crises in like manner: bullets. Blizzards, tornadoes… Wednesday. Our root suspicion is that, deprived of basic cable, most human beings are at most a day away from resorting to cannibalism, and may need to be downed with the brute majesty of a bolt action .308 Mauser rifle.

In a strange inverse, I find myself pretty much on board with the global warming theory, but incredulous about the mounting threats of snow storms. “Bah!” I’ll say, as a car whizzes off a road and floats in mid-air, its molecules suspended at Absolute Zero. “This so-called ‘snow’ is just a myth perpetuated by liquor and grocery stores to jack up prices and clean out their inventories. Mark my words: there will be work tomorrow.” I will continue saying this on my protracted march home from the office, in which I lose a thumb to frostbite and eat a small igloo-dwelling family on Massachusetts Avenue, which lacked the foresight to stock up on bullets for their .308 Mauser rifle.

The arctic exploits of Washington have been numerable this year. In mid December Washington DC experienced twenty-four hours of straight snowfall, accumulating two feet. “A once in a lifetime blizzard.” I capitalized on the nor’easter by joining friends to go sledding down Capitol Hill.

Then over the weekend, we had the glorious 2010 Snowmageddon. This was also a “once in a lifetime blizzard,” which is neat, given that as of today we’ve had three within two months. The 2010 Snowmageddon was the best so far, because it involved a massive, glorious snowball fight in Dupont Circle.

You may have heard about it on the news, given the favorable odds that the 2010 Dupont Circle Snowball Fight was the most intense non-lethal snowball fight in the history of mankind. I’m not good at counting crowds, but according to news sources I’ve since read, the fight had upwards of two thousand people participating in it. It also included a variety of interesting visual elements. For instance, I fought on a park bench near a guy in half of a panda costume. Occasionally cross country skiers would shuffle down the road, out of snowball range. I’m not sure, but I think maybe I saw the Abominable Snowman at one point.

When I first showed up at 14:00, the melee was confined to the Fountain and Inner Ring, with a vast orbit of shutterbug spectators in the periphery. After a few minutes I got a bright idea to start lobbing snowballs behind the fray, to smack the rosy-cheeked pacifists documenting everything.

I’m sure I’m not the only combatant who yelled “There’s no ‘I’m holding an iPhone’ in snowball fights!” I can’t take credit for radically altering the course of the battle. However it happened, by 14:30 the outer periphery unexpectedly joined the war zone, forcing those of us in the Inner Ring to stretch our energies between the militant Fountain (which had limited snow resources but a guy waving an American flag) and the much larger Periphery, which was filled with losers but had plenty of snow reserves and liquor.

Around 15:00 the course of the battle flipped, when, through Kissengeresque diplomacy, the Periphery joined the Inner Ring, and a massive combined army began to pummel the Fountain with snowballs. Every couple of minutes someone would start counting “3… 2… 1…” and a group of us would storm the Fountain, knocking off hats and releasing coordinated volleys of snow.

At 15:30 I was wounded, and, after hearing rumors of a possible chemical attack, decided to recuperate at the home of nearby friends. I found the guy in the panda costume, held back tears and said, “It’s been an honor serving with you, panda guy.” He was going to say something back, I think, but someone creamed him in the face with a snowball. I think Panda guy probably got smacked with ice more than anyone else over the course of the fight, because a giant panda head is an easy and comical target, even for his own army. It’s a good thing real warfare doesn’t work like that, otherwise the cooler your uniform is, the more likely your comrades would lob a grenade at you to see what happens to the tassels.

When I came back at 17:00 the assembled combatants had mostly disassembled, and were now contenting themselves with chucking snowballs over the overpass, and pummelling the occasional car which lumbered by. One car, oblivious to the maddened fighter spirit which pervaded the scene, stopped long enough for a guy to get out and merrily toss a snowball. That was the last time anybody saw him. The moment his car door flew open three or four hundred people screamed in ecstasy and started clobbering him with snowballs. As his dislocated, dripping body managed to scramble back into the car and retreat down the street, people chased after him, including one fellow who had the gall to open the passenger door and lob in a final shot.

I’m still not sure what compelled everyone to apply the same tactics to cop cars and ambulances. Yet, when a cop car came by, you could hear the thump! thwak! ding! of snow guerrillas lobbing balls of ice at it.

I pointed out to several people that lobbing snowballs at police cars was exactly how the Boston Massacre got started, but my insightful historical commentary didn’t do much. Five minutes after the first police car had been pummelled, at least eight showed up, lights blaring, and several police officers exited their vehicles with bull horns to quell what was beginning to look like a riot. I don’t recall what the police officer said, but I remember the soliloquy beginning with “Citizens! Return to your homes!”

If the guy in the panda costume had been there, I would have stayed. I would have followed Panda Guy to the end of the earth. As it were, my comrades had all disappeared, and I made my way home.

Yes, I fought in and survived the 2010 Snowmageddon. But anyone who was there will tell you: the real heroes did not make it home.

I Survived the 2010 Snowgasm