Why do people act surprised when there's snow or freezing temperatures in the winter? Why do people assume you want to know what their local weather is, or if they are local that you don't know what your own weather is and are just dying to find out from the first person who calls you?

Is this a minor point? If you take two minutes of weather reporting times the number of phone calls you engage in each year, how many hours do you waste talking about the weather? Unless you are very young, any weather you are experiencing today is weather you have experienced before (with rare exceptions).

Have you ever read an obituary that said, "He always accurately reported the weather whenever he called?" Don't you want your obituary to say something more substantial?

Weather reporting as a phone topic is one of those annoyances (see Item #1 above) that can drive a sane person bonkers. I am now using humor and an immediate change of subject to try to get people to stop annoying me with this waste of time.

Caller: "Well it sure is cold here."

Me: "Yep. It gets that way every winter. <chuckle> So, what else is new at your end?"