Every town has a week. Monday arrives, errands accumulate, somebody decides today is the day to assemble the furniture. Snowman Falls is no different, except the residents are made of snow and remain fully confident anyway.
Business As Usual is the collection where we document the ordinary days. Not the holidays. Not the big events. Just the regular week: laundry, yard work, a little self-improvement, the occasional pageant.
The documentation
Instructions Unclear is exactly what it sounds like. I don't know what he was building. Neither does he, at this point. The Adirondack chair situation (I Don't Need Directions: Adirondack Chair Build) went about the way you'd expect from a title he chose himself, before starting.
Laundry Day Meltdown documents a resident attempting the one household chore that involves a heated appliance. He was warned. He had a system. The system had opinions.
The Stick Bandit is, as far as anyone can prove, innocent. Arms have been going missing around town for a while now. Walter was seen nearby. Nothing has been confirmed.
Crisp Under Pressure and Cool Under Pressure are two separate residents making two separate claims. Both claims were delivered with complete sincerity. One of them was standing in direct sunlight at the time.
Then there's the pageant circuit, which I did not know we had until recently. Miss Thaw Universe. Miss Determined. Miss July: Pageant Sashes. Miss Sunshine: Pageant Wave With Roses. The one that stays with me is Melting With Grace ~ she finished the wave. The roses made it. Most of her did too.
And Worth It: Giant Bubble Wand. I asked him afterward whether it was. He said yes without hesitating. I have no follow-up questions.
Who this is for
Here's what I've noticed watching people go through this collection. Nobody says, that's a nice shirt. They say a name. That's Dave. That's my sister. Oh no, that's Dad with the chair.
Somebody you know is Self-Made Meltdown. Somebody you know is Anything For Content, filming the whole thing from a safe distance. Somebody you know claims to be Cool Under Pressure and has never once been cool under pressure. You already knew who before you finished the sentence.
Kate says Business As Usual is basically a yearbook for people who commit to things. She bought one for her brother the same afternoon she said it, so make of that what you will.
A note on the meltdowns
For anyone new to Snowman Falls: melting here is not an emergency. It's closer to a scheduling issue. A resident loses some structural definition, reassembles, and carries on with the afternoon. Melting But Thriving isn't irony. It's a status report.
The whole collection lives here, and it keeps growing, because the week keeps happening and the residents keep having ideas...
They seemed pretty sure about it. All of them. Every single time.
Written by Jack Mercer. Thanks for reading.