Reckless Winter Made Its Way

You know, Wisconsin is cold.

Case in point: our high for today is supposedly going to be in the low-twenties. At the moment, we're hanging out around 17 Fahrenheit (-8.3 Celsius), but regardless, I don't think they should be allowed to call anything in the low-twenties a "high." I mean, it's below freezing; how "high" can it possibly be? I think that once the temperature drops below freezing and stays there, they should have to call it the "low" and that the low should really be called the "We're fucked screwed" temperature. "And the low for today will top out at around 26. Tonight, we're screwed at negative 4."

My sister, the Meteorology Major, might disagree with me here. I mean, yes, technically 22 is higher than, say, 4 (check out that Friday forecast. Woohoo), but it's all below the point at which water becomes a solid and do we really need to keep counting beyond that anyway?

And answer me this: do the meteorologists who tell me the local weather every evening all have to make horribly un-funny jokes about the number of blankets we should have on our beds or the amount of time it will take me to shovel my car out in the morning? What is funny about these things, really? I don't need to be reminded that my morning commute will take longer than the usual fifteen minutes. I don't want to hear quips about breaking out the long underwear and the goosedown comforter. And why do the other broadcast journalists sitting at the news desk have to egg them on? Why can't they just say "Thanks, Joe" after the weather report and leave it at that? We really don't need them to state the obvious. We really could probably figure out simply from the numbers and the little icons of clouds dropping snowflakes that "it looks like another cold one out there" without having perky Little Miss Anchorwoman saying it, all the while smiling into the camera with her Perfectly Even, White Teeth.

To be fair, the cold has kept the snow that fell two days ago looking a lovely powdery white. I was dragging the trash out (a fabulously glamorous image, of course) on Monday night and really had to shake off the cold weather "bah-humbug" to appreciate the glittery beauty of it all. Of course, it was 11PM and the whole neighborhood was quiet, which helped—quiet like that doesn't happen often when you live on the edge of the edge of the hood, one block from the Beltline. Even the trash can was quiet as I dragged it down the unplowed driveway and balanced it precariously on the easement in front of the sidewalk. In quiet like that, you can actually hear the snow falling—soft and dry, like very far away rice krispies crackling in a bowl.

Snow deserves this sort of quiet. Standing out there in my boots and my vest next to my trash can, I decided that perhaps it's not so much that I dislike the snow. Perhaps it's that I dislike A) living in the city in the snow and B) having to get out and do things in the snow. When I was a kid and my family lived in Massachusetts out in the country, it was different. There wasn't much to do anyway and it was already quiet. Snow made more sense there. Maybe that's why I thought I liked winter. Maybe I do like winter. Certainly it makes me much more appreciative of spring when it finally arrives. Maybe what I really don't like is the news room banter about wearing a scarf or being a good time to move to Florida.

For the sake of all the grumpy Cold Weather Wimps like me, I sincerely hope that once she graduates and unleashes her predicting prowess on a news station somewhere in the USA, the Meteorology Major steers clear of such cheeseball (however well-intentioned) philosophical musings on how long it will take me to shovel out my driveway. I have hope that, perhaps, she'll skip pointing out the obvious need for a hat in favor of something more original, like statistics for how long it takes hypothermia to set in, perhaps, or maybe a list of smart things to keep in your car incase you get stranded in the snow. She could include personal anecdotes, like the sleeping bag that's good to 20 below that our Dramatic Mother makes her keep in the trunk of her car "just in case." She could say things like "And it's nights like these that made Mother buy me that sleeping bag, folks." Or maybe the Meteorology Major will include a Cold Weather Wimp Grumpiness Scale just for me—something to measure the level of grump that the coldness will be likely to cause. I would even give her permission to use a picture of my face in a scowl for a graphic. Well, a scowl and a hat.

Because even I can predict that it’s going to be another cold on out there tonight, folks. If you’re headed out, don’t forget your hats—our Cold Weather Wimp Grumpiness Scale is in the Hypothermia Blue zone and it doesn't look like it will be creeping back to the Friendly Frostbite area any time soon.