I hate snow. I know, I know, every ten
inches of snow supposedly equals one inch of rain and we all need rain,
but a blizzard seems to me to be an awfully inefficient and dangerous
way to get your moisture.
Such is my
hatred for snow that I'd go so far to say that I'm a chionophobiac. That
means I live in fear of the white stuff. To me there is no such thing
as "beautiful snow". The holidays are the worst because at any minute I
could walk into a store and the Muzak will be playing that irritating
Christmas classic, "Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow." It's gotten
to the point that I hate every month with an "R" in it, which means I
don't get any relief until May.
I've
got a lot of respect for those of you who live in northern climes where
it snows, you with the icicles hanging from your nose hairs. I don't
know how you do it. Please understand, I'm a southern California kid,
born and bred and the only time I saw snow as a child was when me and my
buddies went to YMCA snow camp every winter. One year, three weeks
before the camp I suffered a compound fracture of my leg playing an
unsafe, unsupervised rugby-like game at the Y. The YMCA leaders were so
grateful that my family didn't sue them they insisted that I go to snow
camp while on crutches, all expenses paid. The minute we got there a
blizzard set in for three days and the Y leaders had to carry me out 12
miles on a toboggan. By the time we got to dry pavement I'm sure they'd
have wished we'd have just sued them for ten million.
I
think you have to be born in the snow and grow up with it to be able to
drive in it and I freely admit that I'm no snowman. This was a big
problem because my job description required that I drive 50,000 miles
per year and much of that during the winter in the northlands. But the
minute I see a snowflake I lose my ability to drive. Making matters
worse, I never took my 4 wheel drive pickup nor did I have studded tires
which meant I had to chain up a lot. My personal record was the winter I
had to chain up 28 times and three times were on the same day!
My
wife and I did spend one year in New Mexico but had to move back to
California because I didn't have the clothes for the Land of
Enchantment. I added up what a Carhartt jacket, cap with ear muffs, long
underwear, woolen socks and Sorrell boots would have cost and figured I
could live in an ocean front house back home where it never snows and
the term "winterize" merely entails rolling up your car windows. Oh
sure, we have deadly fog where you can't see two feet in front of you
but at least you never see what kills you and your teeth aren't
chattering and knees knocking because it's 20 degree below zero!
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