Have I Mentioned How Much I Hate Winter?

You know it’s cold when the radio announcer says, “It’s freaking cold outside” and then goes on to read out the temps, leaving yours for last to prove that point. “And in ______, it’s -29 C, the wind chill making it feel more like -42. Bundle up, folks!”

Gee, ya think?

So out I go, waddling more than walking due to the many layers of clothing, all the while thinking how stupid this is, and that this must be how it would feel to gain fifty pounds overnight. The Jeep’s door groans as I open it, echoing my own groan. The Jeep’s engine groans even more as I start it, sounding too much like some torture victim from the good-ol’ Inquisition days. Let‘s Inquisition the weatherman, I think..

The snow is concrete and the clear patches are glass, and that’s only in the driveway. The roads are a different matter altogether. Here’s a question. Why is there always some jerk who believes they own the road (puddle-jumping, playing bumper tag and being a general pain in the ass) just because they have a 4X4?--a cell phone tucked between chin and ear, a Tim’s coffee in the free hand. I own a 4X4 and I’m not as ass. I know you can’t stop on a dime. I know you can have power out the yin-yang and still insert your front bumper in someone’s tail pipe. I know about the lady who died last year when her car took a nose-dive off the bridge. See, I know these things. But that’s not what I was thinking. What I was thinking was: What I wouldn’t give for a Tim’s coffee right about now. That, and: Hope you’re carrying a good picture so they have something nice to put in your obituary.

But Tim’s is not on my route and it’s way too cold to change it, even for a hot Tim’s coffee. Oddly enough, I can almost see myself walking into Tim’s and ordering a coffee, then pouring it down the front of myself to warm up. Ah, but I’ve been through worse - the month before moving here comes immediately to mind. April, it had been - the time of “The Big Snow” - when everything shut down for three days and I was out of cigarettes. But that’s another (ugly) story. In this one, I make it to work, get growled at (again) for being two minutes late (again) and make my way to the coffee machine. Wouldn’t you know it - we’re out of coffee. Well, not coffee, per se, just filters...which works out to being the same thing. Which means I should have stopped at Tim’s.

Have I mentioned how much I hate winter?