Snow Job

I used to enjoy winter, at least, substantially more than I do now. Winter used to mean days off, ski trips, and hot chocolate with artificial marshmallow bits. Now, it's all ice on the inside of the wrist, snow emergencies, and seasonal effective disorder. I still make cocoa, I just drink more of it. Winter will eventually lead to diabetes, mark my words.

Last winter was particularly brutal, aided not at all by my '94 Saturn's untimely death. One night in early January ended with my father dragging the sad, teal sedan through the streets of St. Paul at 2am with a tow-rope, looking for a place to deposit it to avoid getting ticketed, impounded, or crushed. My fingers were so cold I seriously thought they would have to be amputated.

I always hear about the elderly kicking off while shoveling piles of heavy wet snow. What a shabby way to die, isn't it? Not during sex, piloting an out-of-control 747 or taking a bullet for a loved one, but a collapse into frosty, urine-stained slush, an abdication of all dignity. A snowbank would at least preserve the corpse until help arrived.

Maybe it's time to reinvigorate winter, to don my cap and gloves without bitterness and seething, homicidal hatred. Maybe I could take up snowboarding? Sit in a chalet and sip brandy Alexanders beside a roaring Duraflame hearth? Winter is a six month prison sentence, and in a few short months, it'll be hard time.