As of my typing of this, we're still technically several days away from metereological "Winter". Here in the Midwest, as Summertime loosens it's sweaty grip and the leaves begin to change, a very small section of us start hailing the coming of Winter as a wonderful time. They are the one's who have snowmobile calendars and quirky little "Ice Fishing" prayers pinned up to their cubes at work or collection of lift-tickets at littering the zipper rung of their Columbia Jacket's, I would never begrudge the casual hobbyist their seasonal joy...except when that season drags on like sharpened frozen obsidian. These people are wrong.
"Autumn", the truly beautiful season where you won't get swassy coming too and from your car...where you can wear jeans and sweatshirts and feel comfortable...where the landscape takes on the most wonderful hues outside of a school of clownfish lasts all of 15 minutes before it gets brutally cold. And this year we are experiencing an early deep-freeze that George RR Martin couldn't dream up. With my recently reading a great tumblr from a friend (from the South, no less. Which you can/should check out here.) effusively praising winter, and experiencing my roommate's positively gleeful reaction to the cold(Except, he's qualified, for sub-zero temps), I think I've read my last Twit/Status update on how lovely this time of year is...And I'm about to straighten things out for y'all.
No. Really. We're a hearty breed. And we can also bitch mightily:
Transportation
This is a given, and topical seeing's how my S.O. just got into a fender bender. (She's fine. Fortunately she avoided other cars and physical injury and managed to slide into a concrete post outside of a Dairy Queen. Because irony is sliding on ice in front of a DQ.) Of course traffic sucks, and inclement weather always slows things down to a crawl. Naturally, snow and subsequent icy conditions cause traffic to slow to a shuffling shamble seen only on "The Walking Dead". It is necessary. It is awful. The first weekend we had slushy accumulation was immediately followed by a sub-zero freeze. MNDOT is able to pre-treat the roads with chemicals to assist the plows with clearing the roads. The rest of it is the benign hope we'll have some sun to melt away the rest and clear days to dry out. Which doesn't happen.
What happens is you either get (A) uneven road conditions that cause hell with your alignment and driving as frozen nubbins pepper the roads and make it feel like you're driving up the base of Devil's Tower. (Frozen, FYI, doesn't mean you get traction. You'll still slide.) and (B) Patches of black or glare ice. For some reason, you can be going below 3 mph...a crawl...and if you apply your brakes- thinking erroneously you're slow enough to stop- you'll still slide. Sometimes picking up momentum as you go along. I was commuting to work a few years ago, giving a wide berth so there was room. It was snowy and icy, and you can gauge how awful it is when you first pull out. I was in traffic going verrrrry slowly, and still managed to slide forward 50 feet into a truck in front of me. And there was nothing. I. Could. Do.
Upsides? None. You still contend with occasionally getting stuck in one spot with spinning wheels or if you're parked on a street when a plow comes through and pushes a snow berm up to your windshield. Or the fact that to get your brush out of your car when it's snowed, you'll still get a "Bloop" of snow that falls on your seat. Or that you can SEE when people have brushed off that small area in front of the driver side and rely on wind speed to blow off the rest of the snow. (Which, ICYC, doesn't happen and is illegal as hell.) Or the gas wasted on super cold nights starting your car to make and letting it run for a bit to ensure it starts in the morning. (And resentment when you see pristine cars that obviously were parked in a garage overnight.) And lastly, people who drive SUV's, Trucks, etc who think they can still barrel forward on the freeway's because they have 4WD. Which only means they can get out of a snowbank, and will still plow into you. Because they're dumb as s#it.
It's unpredictable
It's weather. See the aforementioned comments about MNDOT plows being unable to clear the roads fast enough if we're unlucky and get a dumping. Meteorologists confess there's nothing to be done when they project an "arctic blast coming in from the North" or "expect a few inches overnight". They LOVE to create douche-y catch phrases like "Snowpocolypse" or "Snowmaggedon" when we get a dumping.
The Farmer's Almanac (and that f#ck head Groundhog Phil) usually act as our long-range forecasters in terms of whether winter will be a long affair or mild. But as I mentioned before, our cold "snap" started in early November. And it feels awful because last winter (2012-2013) didn't release us until Mid-May. My point is, any state or area that thinks a snowfall in June is something to brag about, needs to check their priorities and "mush" their ass up to the Yukon.
(***Note: That unpredictability can also result in unseasonably warm winters as well. I'll cite '98/'99 when it was in the 70's heading into December and running outside in shorts and a tank top, as well as 2011 to 2012 in which I went on a date in February while wearing a light jacket and strolling through St. Paul.)
Cessation of any (safe) Outdoor Activity
Minnesota, the Twin Cities in particular, is frequently touted as being one of the best "outdoorsy" states- flaunting our trail systems, city lakes and parks, bike-a-bility. They further try to make a case that we're a winter wonderland of activities- snow shoeing, cross-country and downhill skiing, ice skating...and I'm here to tell you- f#ck no.
First of all, even walking outside in the winter time is problem. In the city, homeowners are responsible for shovelling their sidewalk in front of their home. And guess what? Not every body does it! That's right! I'm a runner, and there are frequently mounds of snow in front of homes that get packed down and tromped through by pedestrians when the owner's either give ZERO f#cks or assume Spring time'll take care of it eventually.
Crossing the street? See the aforementioned comments about cars that lack control at intersections. Not to mention the icy patches that create uncontrollable trip hazards where you will be going from standing to horizontal before you realize what's happened. This means twisted knees and ankles, and if you're really unlucky a concussion.
But what about the fun stuff? Ice skating is fun, right? Mmmmm...not really. Snowmobile accidents average 200 deaths a year and 14,000 injuries. Cross-country skiing and snowshoeing are exercises in knee and ankle injuries, and sledding/tubing incidents have caused most hills to implement waivers due to people slamming into unexpecting participants. Ice fishing! THAT'S fun! YEAH?!?
Sure. But even that is a misleading activity, as the actual amount of fishing/catching fish you do is not at all analagous to the amount of drinking, eating, sitting around in a heated shack listening to the radio/watching a portable TV before needing to go outside to pee yourself a frozen kickstand.
Oh...and it's cold. Like, it gets ridiculously cold. You don't get to do anything to stand around and "enjoy" the cold. No. It's dangerous, can result in any exposed skin becoming frostbitten in minutes, and even fun events to draw crowds are mostly an attempt to get you to enjoy the stupidly dangerous or nonsensically boastworthy.
The mind-numbing Sisyphesian Repetitive Nature of Winter, aka "Prison Bulls#it"
If you've seen "Cool Hand Luke", you'll remember the scene where the warden makes Luke dig a ditch, only to re-fill it and re-dig it. It was intended to break his spirit...and through movie magic you know it doesn't. (SPOILER Alert- he has a kick ass monologue directed at God before getting his ass shot by the search party after he escapes again.)
In 2010, we had one of those aforementioned sexily titled snowstorms (Snowmaggedon)that dumped 20+ inches down over 24 hours and promptly turned the state of MN into Hoth. (The last record setting accumulation was a freak storm on Halloween in 1991...see previous bullet regarding unpredictability.) That day, I shoveled a grand total of 5 x's which included: The front walk, the sidewalk in front as well as my elderly neighbors, the long back walk (I have a larger lot for the city.), the driveway in order to get the garbage bins out, the walk out roof so that the snow didn't cave it in, the snow berms pushed up by the plows (requiring me to excise the cars from all the snow wedging it's way under wheel wells and making sure the tires had some traction.) The entire time I kept thinking of old Lukey and I cursed the snow...which didn't help my separated shoulder and pinched nerve in my back.
Now, there are some people who have garages...and snowblowers...but folks, this was even overwhelming the plow trucks- which couldn't clear the freeways fast enough. The were telling people to STAY HOME and STAY INSIDE. Cars were getting stranded then plowed in and SNOW PLOWS were spinning out of control. "Snowmaggedon" wasn't an inappropriate moniker. And the only positive thing was that it happened over the weekend. Think about the Halloween storm when the snow plows aren't even gassed up and out of their storage.
I inherited a Carhart snowsuit system after my dad passed. It (and he) is/was a 50 Tall. When I wear it, I feel like a Russian Nesting Doll. I only break it out when we get into double-digits below Zero. That snowmaggedon, I was forced to walk to the liquor store for some wine in the middle of the streets because it was thigh-deep everywhere else, only trudging out of the way if a truck was coming through. Because I couldn't drive. In fact, if I wear it in my car I can barely stretch the seatbelt over my lap. In 1996, I was forced to get up every 3 hours because we had record-setting cold and if I didn't start my engine on my used Crown Vicky, she wouldn't start at all. (And she didn't, naturally)
Before you chalk this Negative Nelly-ism to all gloom and doom, please understand- I love the "Holidays". The winter wonderland. I love a White Christmas/Birthday. It's pristine and pretty and washed in nostalgia and cheer. I just have a cut-off point. And that cut-off point lands exactly on February 18th. At that point I am over and done with Winter. Like, now.* And as I mentioned previously, with last winter and this winter happening so close that they could almost hold hands (and effectively robbing me of a Summer.**) I reached "Sick of this s#it" levels approximately 2.5 months early.
*And moving isn't an option. Right now, the warmest part of the nation is Florida. And I'm not going to jump from a shark tank into the lion cage for a neverending Summer. I won't. Touch. America's. Wang. They crazy.
**The sad thing is that if we don't get a good heavy dumping of precipitation we wind up hearing about it throughout the Spring and Summer...
No comments:
Post a Comment