Winter precipitation is rare in L.A. - Lower Alabama. When we hear that it might be on the way, we celebrate by purchasing all the bread and milk that we can carry.

Southerners hear those two powerful words: Winter Precipitation and freak out - regardless of how big or small a chance there is that something wet will fall from the clouds. No matter if the probability is 0.000001% or 95% - the grocery stores make a killing on their marked-up weather survival items, most notably milk and bread.

Why do we go nuts about wet winter weather? Simply because we fear that the snow, ice, and sleet will last for weeks and bring power outages, water shortages, widespread famine, bad breath and ingrown toenails. Plus, if we got used to Winter Precipitation, then we run the risk of actually learning how to drive in the snow! The horror.

Why we choose bread and milk instead of, say, prune juice and peanuts, is easy. Bread and milk are versatile. Bread can be eaten alone, and used for sandwiches, toast, for insulation (stuffed in shoes, under doors, in ears, etc.), as a spoon rest and to sop gravy.

We use milk like Europeans use wine, drinking it and mixing it in food. It makes gravy creamy, biscuits bodacious, and is the perfect accompaniment to those fresh-out-of-the-oven cookies. Plus you can use it to make cheese if you get really bored.

The biggest reason we want milk is to make snow cream. If you're from up north, you probably don't know about this frosty delicacy. It's like homemade ice cream that takes only minutes to make. Just mix up some milk, sugar, vanilla extract, and pour over fresh clean snow for an old fashioned sweet treat.

There are many more uses for milk and bread, but their usefulness doesn't explain the deep down reasons why Southerners choose these two specific items when there's a chance of Winter Precipitation. However, I have my own notions why ...

1. Biblical Perspective: The Old Testament taught us the importance of having milk and honey in a time of draught. When we face Winter Precipitation, we think Biblical and want milk and bread (which is the next best thing to manna).
2. Basic Human Nature: This urge just might be a survival instinct from the last ice age, and who knows? This Winter Precipitation might be the start of another ice age!
3. Subliminal Advertising: while the weather updates are televised, there might be hidden messages telling us, "BUY BREAD! BUY MILK!"
4. Environment: Maybe we want to buy milk and bread because that's what we've always done. Granny and Momma bought milk and bread when there was the possibility of Winter Precipitation, so we should too.
5. Meteorological Mind Control: Weathermen may get a percentage of milk and bread sales.

Have Southerners always been afflicted with this Low Pressure insanity or did it start recently? I have my theories. Back in ye olde 1800's, there weren't meteor-whats-its and weather balloonists, but many scientific-like folks that faithfully read their almanacs and watched their barometers. I wonder what Winter Precipitation mayhem they experienced.

I imagine the towne crier found out about the bad weather, climbed to the church tower, rang the bell and shouted, "Citizens! Be warned! 'Tis a foule north wind a blowing in and bringing a wee chance of . . . WINTER PRECIPITATION!"

Then hysterical townspeople stormed the mercantile purchasing all the snuff, goat's milk, Sears and Roebucks catalogs, and flour their donkeys, horses, or buggies could carry. Nah, I don't see it. Their lives were hard, having no central heating and country music, so I doubt snow or ice kept them away from their normal chores for very long.

Winter weather hysteria may have begun when weather begun to affect the things we held dear, like being warm, well fed and comfortable. I can see the Russian-bomb-scared Big Bopper fans of the 1950s scrambling for batteries, tinfoil (to keep the radioactive snow from penetrating their brains), toilet paper, bread, and milk.

The psychedelic folks of the 1960s probably heard about Winter Precipitation on their transistor radios in between bursts of Elvis and Jimmy Hendrix tunes. They quickly braided their dreadlocks, and drove to their corner markets for black lights, incense, hemp paper, bread and milk.

People of the 1970s also panicked when the side-burned and very hip weather dudes nodded their Afros and said, "There's a chance of . . . Winter Precipitation!" Everyone put on their love beads and flip-flops, and then ransacked the grocery store for pet rocks, Earth Wind and Fire 8-tracks, squeeze-able Charmin toilet paper, bread, and milk.

Stay tuned to see what SouthernAngel forecasts next!