12.10.2007

Do you Subaru?

Winter is the ugliest and the smelliest season on the calendar. Call me grumpy, but I can’t help feeling this way.

The snow was indisputably beautiful when it arrived last weekend. It added a picturesque element to my tranquil Saturday afternoon. But now it’s nine days later, Mama Nature has assaulted the isthmus with much more white stuff, and it looks more like a mudslide hit town rather than a snowy front. All the powder on the ground has either consolidated into a shit-colored sheet of ice about three inches thick or been processed into a pile of shit-colored, slushy slop.

Both consistencies of the poopsnow have waged wars against my automobile this week, with the same result--my nose occupied by the scent of burning rubber from my tires' attempts to gain enough traction to climb up Paterson Street. I’m beginning to understand why everyone else on my block drives an all-wheel drive Outback (I mean, besides that other reason), which is actually much more of a beefcake than an H2. Thankfully, on more than one occasion this week, winter-ready neighborhood Subaruvians have been kind enough to hop out of their steely wagons to give my little Escort a heave-ho through the slick patches, enabling my safe arrival home.

And home is where I shall strive to stay until spring. After an unsuccessful attempt at a seasonal attitude adjustment last winter, I am happy to commit to four months of sipping hot cocoa on my couch with my Netflix du jour. When it got all snowy last year, I decided to try and find a winter hobby, thinking that it might help me enjoy the season if I had something fun and active to do. My boyfriend graciously took me to the slopes to teach me to snowboard. My bruised body caused me to become so surly over the next two weeks that the relationship failed. And I can still feel that day's tailbone fracture.

Because I am entering my fifth consecutive Madison winter, I finally feel like I have enough experience under my belt to make an official proclamation--crabby is my default wintertime demeanor. It may not be a matter of cheering up or changing perspective after all. I may just really, truly, wholeheartedly hate this season and need to come to terms with that.

But before I make anything concrete, I have one remaining idea for the final test of the Theory of the Angry Winter Me. I’ve got this feeling that a nice (long) pour of peppermint schnapps in my mug of hot chocolate might perk me up and prove the whole thing wrong. But I’d probably need one of those damn Subarus just to make it to the liquor store. Hmph.

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