It’s -7 degrees tonight (add the wind and it feels like -25). And it’s the end of February. We’ve literally been doing this for months. And would we like to tell you about it? You betcha we would!
Sure, if you bump into us while you’re here on that unfortunately timed business trip your company insisted you must attend, we WILL complain about the weather. But, deep down… we love this shit.
You see, we’ve been tolerating your ridicule for years. I mean, Fargo was a pretty good movie, we’ll give you that. Although we did feel the accents were, well, a little overdone. We don’t really sound like that (we do). But truly, we’ve been the butt of that joke for a long time. And do you have any idea how exhausting it is to explain to you, every single time we travel anywhere south of Kansas City or go anywhere at all on a plane, that no, it is not actually below freezing and covered in snow here all year round. Yuck, yuck, we chuckle along with you only because we are on vacation, and those of us who are codependent enough to have a need to justify living in this climate may even spend inexplicably long periods of time trying to explain to you how hot it actually is here in the summer and how you should really come visit during a gorgeous, crisp autumn. Yes, I’ve always wanted to, you say, eyes glazing over as you return to Bejeweled Blitz, leaving us frustrated and misunderstood.
Perhaps it’s a bit of an inferiority complex. You’re always bragging about your sunny beaches, your varying elevations, your citrus fruit. We have the Boundary Waters Wilderness Canoe Area, but even trying to explain the beauty of that tends to end in a story involving mosquito bites and mud.
So here we are, with weeks upon weeks of below zero temperatures and incessant snow adding up to what is very likely going to be the coldest, most brutal winter on record.
But you know what?
We got this.
Because when the 11” snow fall comes, getting ourselves to work isn’t an impossibility. It’s a challenge. You can see the puffed up chests around the water cooler as we tell the stories of our adventures just getting out of our driveway, and don’t even get us started on the three separate vehicles we stopped to push out of a snowbank along University Avenue.
And when there are blizzard conditions... our airport? That’s right, it doesn’t even shut down.
And when the temp drops to -20, we start considering that school might be called off. And sometimes it isn’t.
Oh, you think you’ve had a tough winter, too? Well, we saw that video of the silly couple in Portland, all “This is actually the perfect snow conditions for a run”. And you know what? We knew she was going to fall, because we saw the patch of ice as she headed toward it. Duh.
And Atlanta, well, you really made us laugh this winter... sleeping in your cars on the freeway? Amateurs.
Look, when we get absolutely, relentlessly battered with winter, suddenly, the coldest and darkest of midwestern hearts begin to thaw. We realize, hey! I’m pushing a snowblower! I can clear my neighbor’s sidewalk and never even have to speak to them. If that doesn’t scream warm and loving neighbor, we don’t know what does.
Drive through any first ring suburb filled with mid-century homes inhabited by aging men and you will see the very definition of “clean winter driveway”. These guys spend entire weekends with all varieties of snow removal equipment, until bare pavement proves their superiority to every other human in a seven block area, if not the entire city. The other day, I was struggling along a city street in my too-tiny-for-a-midwest-winter car, when the smooth, white concrete of an completely clear driveway caught my eye. And there, beaming with pride, was the man responsible for that driveway. Was that a tear in his eye, as he nodded in my direction?
We’ll chuckle along cooperatively as you tease us for electing a "former professional wrestler" governor. And we will flood your economy with our vacation dollars when we can’t stand another minute. But until then, we'll go outside in mind-numbing coldness and toss water in the air, just to see what happens.
So, can we all just agree on this one thing?
When it comes to winter, we’ve got it going on.
You betcha.
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