Brrrrrrrrrrrrr!

For those of you who may be meteorologically challenged, winter is fast approaching us.

This isn’t the best of news for me, because I don’t do winters well. At least not Minnesota winters.

I’m a native born Yooper, so the ability to navigate gargantuan piles of road-clogging snow while avoiding rogue snowplows, all while still being able to sing along happily with the radio, is naturally infused in my DNA. However, Minnesota winters are tough for me. This is because Minnesota would much rather freeze you than it would bury you.

Snow is an enemy you can fight. You can shovel your driveway eighteen times in one day during a blizzard, just to show Mother Nature that you’re not going to give in to her. Cold, however, is a whole other animal, one that’s hard to confront directly. You may be able to fend it off, but you can’t really attack it. For some reason, even though the saying is usually associated with other subjects, the phrase “silent but violent” comes to mind.

And Minnesota is cold. Dave Barry* says that “one of Minnesota’s major industries is trying to get cars started, which is very difficult because the entire state is located inside the Arctic Circle.” You can find YouTube videos where people here throw a cup of water outside into the air, and it instantly turns into a puff of vapor. Now, some may find this scientifically interesting, perhaps even a bit humorous, but I see it simply as a warning to never go outside between November and March unless protected by enough layers of clothing to roughly double one’s body weight.

Minnesota can also be devious. As a Yooper, I spent the first twenty-odd years of my life under the impression that it was impossible in nature for the sun to shine during the winter. I was used to six months of a perpetual gray cloud cover. However, the sun does often show itself during the Minnesota winters. The problem is that it doesn’t provide any heat. It’s basically nothing more than a big tease, where it looks halfway pleasurable outside until you actually get there, and then you realize that your eyebrows have frozen and fallen off, and that your lips aren’t that far behind.

I have several mechanisms for coping with Minnesota winter.

• I stop at every gas station I encounter and buy coffee. Coffee tastes much better in the winter, so I take full advantage of this. My caffeine consumption skyrockets during this time, as does my average number of trips to the bathroom per day. It’s worth it, though, because the coffee is good, the bathrooms are typically indoors, and the indoors are typically warm. That’s a win-win in my book.
• I pretend that I’m going to use the extra time indoors to expand my cooking repertoire, but I never actually do. For some reason, I find that comforting.
• I catch up on my reading. If winter lasts too long, this might stretch out to having to re-read every Garfield comic ever produced.
• I listen to Hawaiian music with the heat blasting while I sway softly to the music. Ha ha! Just kidding! As far as you know.

The first part of winter actually isn’t that bad. This lasts from the time the Lions start losing football games up until New Years Day. During this time, there’s always something to look forward to, such as Thanksgiving or Christmas or eating enough home-baked goods during those two occasions to give birth to several new chins.

Once January rolls around, however, it’s a whole new ballgame, and the bottom completely falls out. There’s no getting around it, this is when a person just has to quit their whining, suck it up, and slog on through, no matter how many times their eyebrows freeze and fall off. (Either that or remember to have scheduled a tropical vacation for all of February.)

Eventually, right before insanity begins to set in, spring finally arrives. By this time, I’m about as sick of coffee as a person can be, I never want to see another book again, Garfield is no longer humorous, and I’ve developed a strong dislike for Hawaiian music.

I cackle happily when I see the ice rinks melting, even though that could very well be an offense punishable by death here in Minnesota. I gleefully watch as the temperatures inch back upwards to near-habitable levels. The local deer population take off their long underwear. My eyebrows grow back, and I fall to my knees in the beautiful new grass to celebrate the birth of a new season.

Then I get a tick on me.

Stupid warm weather.

*If you haven’t read Dave Barry, you should.