Walking in Winter Wonderland

So apparently its winter. I say apparently because I’m from Hawaii, so I’m not exactly familiar with the whole concept of “seasons.” But now that I am living in the beautiful town of Boulder, Colorado, I have a new-found appreciation for the changing of the seasons; the colors of the leaves, the sun shining off the snow, the flowers in the spring. Ahaha I’m joking of course. I hate seasons. I lived in Hawaii for almost 20 years and I didn’t spend one second thinking to myself “Boy, wouldn’t it be swell if the weather sucked half the year,” (for one thing, whenever I talk to myself I never use words like “swell”).

The reason I’m bringing this up is that this past Wednesday, Colorado had a bit of a snowstorm. Now Tuesday night, the forecast called for over a foot of snow, so the university considered cancelling school. This of course excited me, and for a moment of temporary insanity I was actually cheering for the snow. But of course when I woke up the next morning, there was not enough snow to cancel school. There was enough snow, however, to make it a pain to walk the 40 minutes to my class. Those of you that know me know that I hate class, hate walking, hate waking up before noon, hate being hungry, and hate putting on pants and shoes. Needless to say, I was not in a great mood that morning. If Megan Fox had walked up to me in a bikini that morning I would have head-butted her in the face.

So while I’m in my first class, the snow starts really picking up outside. That’s when my professor informs me that the school will be shutting down at 2 and that we are all supposed to go home. Now some of you may think that this was awesome. However, let’s analyze this for a second. I still had to walk into school in the snow, and I would still have to walk back home in the snow. I figured that since I was there already, I might as well get to go to class. I always assumed that snow days were supposed to cancel school for the entire day. In fact, the school really was kicking me out into a blizzard because all of their professors were bitching about not wanting to drive to Boulder. So with school officials poking me in the back with their skies trying to make me leave the building faster, I walked back out into two feet of snow to trudge back home.

So now that I realize even snow days suck, I really don’t see any positives about snow. Yet there are people up here who love snow and cheer for it to fall as if it cured AIDS (then again, maybe that’s why AIDS is such a big problem in Africa, it never snows). If you like snow, I have to inform you that you are going to hell. I ‘m sorry you had to find out this way. I’m just going to assume that if you like snow you have never known anything else, kind of like that argument that cows in slaughterhouses are happy because they don’t know anything else. (By the way, I don’t agree with that argument, but I do offer this: who gives a damn? They’re cows. They were put on this world for one purpose: beef.)

I’m going to be honest, I never saw it snow until I was in like middle school, and I grew up just fine. Before that, my only experience with snow was in cartoons like Pooh Bear’s Christmas. By the way, Winnie the Pooh is the greatest cartoon of all time. If you didn’t like Winnie the Pooh growing up I no longer want to talk to you (mainly because it has been scientifically proven kids who don’t watch Pooh growing up become serial killers). Anyway, in the cartoons snow always looked soft and fluffy and you could make perfect snowballs and snowmen and snow angels. Then I played in the snow for the first time and realized what snow truly was: frozen lies. Or at least frozen water. Seriously, my sister made a snowball and nailed me in the head with it and nearly knocked me out. Apparently the second humans touch snow it turns into ice. To this day I have never been able to make a round snowball or a snowman that doesn’t look like some sort of Guantanamo Bay torture victim (my most recent try on that snow day honestly looked more like a fish than Frosty, but in my defense when we found out school had been cancelled we hit the bottles at 3 in the afternoon).

Now every person I meet who finds out I go the University of Colorado always asks me if I ski or snowboard. I find this stupid; just because everyone else here does it doesn’t mean I do. Do you see me asking people who go the University of Florida if they engage in sodomy? No. Mainly because I have a strict policy against talking to people who went to the University of Florida. But anyway, whenever people find out I don’t ski or snowboard they always ask me why I would go the University of Colorado if I don’t. I guess it really is that hard to imagine me making a decision based solely on academics. I politely inform these people that growing up in Hawaii, I wasn’t exactly exposed to the ski and snowboarding culture. It’s like asking people from Nebraska why they don’t like reading.

Of course, these same people then follow up with “but it’s just like surfing.” Which is a great point, snowboarding is exactly like surfing. Except that one takes place on a beach in warm tropical waters surrounded by chicks in bikinis. The other takes place in the snow on a cold, lonely mountain with people in so many layers of clothes you can’t tell what species they are, much less their gender. Now, I have skied and snowboarded multiple times. Which is further evidence that I am a slow learner. For one, the boots are clearly designed for a different species of animal whose legs bend the other way, like horses. Because they are clearly not meant for humans, or at least me. The walk from the lift to the hill was twenty feet long, and it took me nearly an hour to get there. Then there is the whole matter of falling down. I suck at surfing, so I always fall down, but at least water is somewhat forgiving. Ice on the other hand does not give at all. Just ask Natasha Richardson.

So now that the snowy season has begun, you will probably see very little of me outside of the house. Now that I have a snuggie in fact, you will rarely see me off the couch.