The (semi)Great Snowstorm of 2013

Winters just aren’t the same as they used to be.  I mean, 20 years ago right here in my Midwest stomping grounds by the beginning of March we would already have had some pretty heavy snowfalls.  A winter storm or two, even.  We usually had snow fall by Thanksgiving, and at the very least a dusting at Christmas.  January and February were brutal at times.  And when there wasn’t snow, there were temps well below zero.

Captain Kangaroo, brother to Captain Morgan

We could always count on snow days between January and March when I was a kid in short pants(or snow pants).  Those were the best.  Going to sleep with my little Nestle Crunch transistor radio* next to my bed so I could check the radio station right at 6am to see if school was cancelled.  And when it was cancelled, I could never go back to sleep.  I’d get up with my dad and watch him from the picture window as he shoveled the driveway before he had to leave for work at 7:30am.  I can still remember getting up on those cold, winter mornings, grabbing a blanket and sitting over the vent and covering myself.  The heat would kick on and it was like being encased in calming warmth.  Watching Captain Kangaroo with the warm furnace air nearly burning my butt, I planned my day.  Breakfast(toast and hot chocolate), playing with action figures in the morning, gearing up for the great adventure outside and making snow forts.  Then -either when I was completely frozen or I had to pee- I’d come in for lunch and begin preparations for GI Joe to battle Cobra on the basement steps.  This was followed up with a snack of some sort and annoying my older brother.  Cartoons in the late afternoon and then bartering with God about getting another foot of snow so I could stay home the next day as well.  “Listen, you hook us up with another load of the white stuff and I promise to be good.  I’ll even stop thinking impure thoughts about Princess Leia(fingers crossed), and I’ll stop doing that impression of the kid that stutters at school.  Deal?“  It never worked.  But I did quit doing impressions of the kid that stuttered anyways.  He died from his condition(No.  Actually he didn’t).

Now?  It just doesn’t happen as much.  This is the really first heavy snow we’ve had since winter began.  It’s March and we’re just now getting a heavy snow.  What about those poor leprechauns in their green tights and cloth shoes?  They’ll freeze in a couple weeks when they show up to drink green beer and eat corned beef and cabbage.  Easter bunny?  Not happening.  I should feel bad for not buying my son some snow boots that fit well this season, but frankly he hasn’t

“Spring into Fall Biodome” opening pre-Winter of 2030

needed them.  This is has been like a Smokey Mountain winter, not a Midwest winter.  We’re moving towards a two season existence.  Spring and Fall are being replaced by pre-Summer and pre-Winter.  The leaves soon will no longer turn.  They’ll just curl and die on the branches over the course of  3 days.  Pre-winter will consist of a very small palette of colors:  green, brown, and gray.  Pre-summer will consist of just brown, with the occasional blue sky.  Lexapro will become a national sensation, prescribed to everyone due to the depression epidemic.  There will be biodomes built to give future generations the synthetic experience of fall and spring.  “Look Billy, that’s where the old timey phrase ‘turning of the leaves’ comes from.  Leaves actually used to change colors, thanks to Photoshop and Industrial Light and Magic.” 

I may have gone overboard with this overzealous extrapolation of a dystopian future where we have no fall and spring, visit biodomes where we see what those lost seasons were like as if visiting the Hall of Presidents at Disney, and wear bubbles on our heads -not because we have to due to environmental catastrophes- but because they’re cool.

That’s just what I do on mornings like this.  Mornings I should’ve had a snow cancellation but didn’t.  Mornings I should’ve stopped at two cups of coffee.  But.  I.  Didn’t.

Hall of Lost Seasons….err, I mean Presidents