Ship out, winter, you've bugged us
Sick and tired of soggy, gray winter
Date published: 3/14/2008
By Edie Gross
W INTER HAS felt exceptionally long this
year.
Maybe it was the extra 24 hours in February. Or the fact that all of my co-workers have been moonlighting as phlegm producers.
Whatever the reason, it has overstayed its welcome.
Not that it's been particularly fierce. It hasn't.
I don't think I've scraped my windshield once this year. And I certainly haven't shoveled the driveway.
Maybe that's the problem.
You see, winter here in Fredericksburg has a few contractual obligations, among them pristine blankets of snow, followed by armies of disfigured snowmen marching up front lawns, unlicensed construction of architecturally unsound ice forts and repeated snowballs to the back of the head.
Yet the one "snow day" we had this year didn't result in any actual snow--just a lot of gray dampness.
The season is supposed to be an opportunity to get in touch with your inner lumberjack, to don waterproof boots and gloves and march across the frozen tundra, your pockets stuffed with jerky on your survivalist trek to the mailbox.
In that regard, this winter has been a big disappointment.
It's like anticipating an adventurous camping trip with one of those rugged, square-jawed, outdoorsy types who turns out to have a clammy handshake, a flannel allergy and a fear of heights.
It makes for a long walk in the woods.
The season's drabness has taken a hefty toll at the office. The Free Lance-Star's bank of fluorescent lights hasn't been able to stave off Seasonal Affective Disorder.
Every colorful e-mail from Travelocity boasting winter getaways to Jamaica, Bermuda and the Bahamas has felt like a punch in the face.
On one particularly cold, gray day, my editor wept openly after a cruel pop-up add promised her SUPER SAVINGS NOW on fares to Cancun.
"It's 83 degrees and breezy there," she wailed. "EIGHTY-THREE DEGREES!!"
Flu, pneumonia and bronchitis have run rampant this winter through our news department, which is basically a petri dish with a conference room.
Once cholera, yellow fever and smallpox sweep through here, we'll have ourselves a full season of "Little House on the Prairie."
I don't blame the dank, bleak winter for our plague-like misfortunes. Everyone knows that rats, fleas and roadside seafood--not sleet--carry pestilence.
But the lousy weather seems to aggravate those conditions.
Being unable to breathe through both nostrils is somehow more tolerable on sunny, breezy days.
And drowning in one's own lung tissue feels more heroic when the temps fall below freezing and you can't feel your feet.
But when winter limps along, cloudy, gloomy and noncommittal, a workplace-emptying epidemic seems like overkill.
Even the folks at Accu-weather seem disappointed in this year's flop of a winter.
They sent a press release last week warning that a "powerful storm system" was plotting a "two-pronged attack" on the East Coast.
Indeed, it rained on Friday. But I think a "two-pronged attack" by a rogue weather cell was perhaps just wishful thinking from meteorologists who've grown tired of this winter's lackluster performance.
Besides, I counted only one prong. A prolonged, sloppy, soggy one to be sure--but one nonetheless.
On the other hand, spring officially starts on Thursday. I'm hoping for a full-scale assault.
Edie Gross: 540/374-5428
Email: egross@freelancestar.com
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Date published: 3/14/2008
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