Can you feel it?
The last week of weather in Manitoba has offered us a glimpse into what we are in for. The temperature on the thermometer is slowly climbing back above zero.
We can shed the outer protective skin of heavy winter coats. Minus-forty-five-with-the-wind-chill is a slogan of the past. The secret long johns that quietly keep our legs warm beneath our jeans can go back into the top drawer. It is time to ditch those hideous UGGs for running shoes. It is a time of celebration: Sweater weather!
Right?
Hell no. I see spring on the horizon and all I want to do is climb back into the deep freeze. The season of spring in Manitoba is grossly overrated. All of its negative traits are glossed over because it marks the end of our six-month forced hibernation.
We haven’t felt the sun warm our skin since September, and so once that big ball in the sky actually looks like it is up to something, we get excited. Spring is only remotely positive when set next to the monstrous season that is winter. If spring were a conversation with your parents it would look like this:
“Mom, I contracted herpes.”
GASP!
“Ha ha. Actually, I just totalled the car. That’s not so bad, right?”
(In this conversation, winter is herpes and spring is the totalled car).
If you cut through all of the contrived, optimistic bologna and you take a closer look at spring, you will come to realize how un-cool the season of spring really is.
First, it is wet. The snow is melting, and all of the sand and the salt and the dirt are mixing with the water to create a brown, cold, goopy mess. This wet muck will soak your shoes and your socks. It will climb up the back of your pant legs. The bottoms of your jeans will become soggy. There is no escaping the dampness. Everything is moist.
Second, if you live in Manitoba, spring often means flooding. This massive watery assault happens almost every year — fields become lakes, houses are left stranded or are absorbed and highways are made impassable.
Third, and perhaps worst of all, you have to clean. Whoever came up with the concept of “spring cleaning” should be severely punished. All of those undesirable jobs that you can ignore for the rest of the year come back to bite you once spring rears its ugly head.
You have to wash the windows, the cupboard, the wall; you have to rake up all of those soggy leaves and you have to weed the garden. You have to clean the shower and wash all of your bedding.
Yes, spring does mark the end of winter, but as the cold weather, the bulky jackets and the tattered long johns leave us, a whole new pallet of odious elements enter the picture.
And as far as I am concerned, I will take frigid temperatures and heavy clothing over soggy pant legs and wet socks any day.
