When people think of winter, they automatically think of Christmas, New Year’s, staying indoors, being inside their warm house, or snuggling under the covers. There are many reasons why people like winter.
When I think of winter, I think of the cold, crappy weather and how I’ll be stuck indoors from late November to early March. While everyone else is happy inside their warm house watching a good movie, I’ll be inside wanting to be outside playing futbol with my friends.
We get about five months straight of just cold weather. That’s November to March of just freezing, wet, and unpleasant weather that we have to deal with. Now, don’t get me wrong, snow is definitely pretty to look at, but once you have to touch it, your whole body just wants to freeze up and run away. Touching it is a whole different story.
Once the snow starts to fall, for me, it’s about the amount of time that gets taken away from my family and friends, and it’s all because of the nasty snow.
Of course, you can still spend time with your family during the cold season, but it’s going to take you fifteen more minutes to get ready, bundled up and warm and cozy, just to go outside. Obviously, you can’t just go outside in short sleeves and shorts unprepared for the weather. You have to wear a warm hat, gloves, boots, and at least three layers on top and two on the bottom. When you think about it, if you go outside at least three times a week for about five months straight, and it takes fifteen minutes just to get ready each time, you spend about thirty-three hours just getting ready to go outside with your family. Eventually, that time adds up, and you end up losing so much more time with the people you love.
Now instead if it was warm out, you wouldn’t have to worry about that time because you would be spending it doing something and with others–just go for a walk carefree, no extra layers and no extra effort.
In winter you can’t be out past 5:00 p.m. without losing sunlight. In the summertime you can stay out until 8:30 p.m. before you lose light. You can be outside all hours of the night because it’s probably 70 degrees at 1:00 a.m. In winter, it’s freezing at 6:00 p.m.
I haven’t even begun to talk about the other issues, like how absolutely nasty the roads become. Once the snow and ice come down, driving is perilous. It can melt during the day and freeze during the night and then another layer of snow will fall over the death trap. You can be driving to work or home or even your grandma’s house, and the second your tires hit the road, you start sliding and swerving because you can’t even see what’s beneath your tires. You’re driving 15 miles per hour slower than the speed limit, taking longer to get to your destination.
The slick and mushy drives can cause an insane number of accidents, and that’s not even the worst part.
You wake up in the morning, the nice older brother who leaves their car outside so others can have theirs protected, and you sleep in a little bit longer only to walk out the door to see your car in the driveway buried in snow. Then you try to get in the car to get your scraper, but you physically can’t open your car door because of the ice that’s keeping your door shut. So then you have to go into your garage to get an extra tool to clear the ice off your car and pick away at the ice for another 10 to 15 minutes just to get in. When you’re in the car, there’s still ice on your windows. You’re staring through a small scraped space and either driving without a clear view of the bad roads or sitting another 15 minutes waiting for your car to defrost. At this point, you’re definitely late for school and some teacher is going to think you’re slacking just because you’re a senior instead of an innocent person trapped in a Cleveland winter.
Winter sucks. I can say for certain no one is jumping for joy and saying, “Yay, my hands feel like they’re about to fall off. Yay, my car is slipping off the roads and I might crash and die. Yay, I get to go out in the cold for 15 minutes that feel like forever and die of frostbite.” Spring can’t come soon enough.
