I have finally gotten to the root of my hatred for winter. Winter is dangerous.
Oh I know about the wonders of soft, fluffy flakes gently bouncing off of cheeks and lashes, got it. I also have experienced great times skiing on new powder, and sledding with the kids followed by sipping warm cocoa while our socks and mittens dry, yeah, yeah, yeah. I do know about the many “wonders” of winter, I am not a curmudgeon, but I am done with it all. Been there, done that and I am not amused.
As I have aged, I have found winter less appealing, more so each consecutive year. At first, I thought it was the cold – I hate being cold. I hate waking up with a chill in the room, however slight. I hate feeling chilly.
However, I actually don’t mind a brisk walk in the cold, if I am dressed for it. But I hate feeling my hands turn numb in less than a minute if I am not wearing mittens from the car to a store. Everyone knows you can’t wear mittens or gloves into a store because one will get lost - it will be left behind on a counter, in a cart, or parking lot. Everyone knows that. If you don’t, then you are most likely sporting a mismatched pair of something.
I also don’t like the snow on the roads. When it snows, people drive like 16 year olds – either way too slow or waaaay too fast. It’s a crapshoot out there.
Ice is my next complaint. Our city has decided that salt is evil and therefore, only uses it sparingly (after major accidents) on the roads. Living on a steep, S shaped hill is always challenging in the winter. If the ice doesn’t get me on the roads, it manages to surprise me on a sidewalk. It sneaks up on me and when I least expect it, down I go. What an adrenaline rush.
What really is hard about winter is when it gets dangerously cold. Like 20 below with a stiff wind insuring that, my dog, car and me are all going to die if I spend over a minute outside. I say a prayer to the patron saint of car mechanics and hope it works (in case you are ever in need, her name is Saint Catherine of Alexandria).
It is always something in the winter. The other night, I smelled something funny and realized that my trusty space heater (which had been on 24/7 for about a month), was silently melting. Dang. I really needed that heater for our family room, which has windows on three sides.
Next up, the electricity got all sassy just because I had a space heater and two hair dryers going at once. Everything went dark. Try and have the house go dark on a freezing cold night and see what that does to your psyche.
Have I mentioned the cracks, and inexplicable noises I hear when it is really cold? The sonic booms my roof makes when ice is cracking? Or the groans from the deck when I replace the birdseed? It sounds like the deck is going down and taking me to the snowy depths below.
I am not even going to get into carbon moxide poisoning, frozen water pipes, fires caused by dirty fireplaces, and ice damns.
I cower like a dog in this weather. I retreat to a warm room with my charged Kindle and just wait it out. I pray to Santa Ana (patron saint of heat and grace) and ask for more degrees. I wait, believing Julie Andrews that “these silver white winters will melt into springs.”
And, just as I am feeling a little bit OK that things will be fine, I must listen to every radio and TV news announcer tell me about how dangerous this icy world is. They report every spin out, every story of human frostbite, and every missing digit that fell victim to the snow blower. They talk incessantly of how to recognize hypothermia and what to put into your emergency survival kit so that if you get stuck on the way to the liquor store, you can survive (what the heck, good reason to pull over and eat the chocolate in the kit).
If I get stuck, I really hope it’s on my way back from the liquor store. Just saying.
Click here for safety tips!
