Frozen fingers and a hectic season render winter detestable

By Caitlin Kropp

Winter is the worst season ever.

Don’t deny it.

How anyone could defend this wasteland of a season is beyond me. In addition to the horrible weather, the stress of the holidays and the general seasonal depression is enough to drive even the sanest of winter-goers over the edge.

Think about it for a second. Why do we even need a winter? Since ancient times, winter has been associated with death and depression. Winter, to ancient farmers, represented the time when crops withered and died from cold and nothing could be done to sustain the family. Did I mention that the ancient Greeks also associated winter with the time when Persephone was forced to live with Hades in the underworld every year, causing her mother, Demeter, the goddess of crops, to become horribly depressed and pretty much let everyone starve?

That, to me, does not sound like the ideal season.

Everything bad is made all the worse during the winter months. Commonplace water puddles become centers of frozen death, capable of sending a car, a bike, or even a pedestrian skidding across the pavement. Rolling blackouts, instead of being a minor inconvenience, actually force people from their homes, due to the extreme cold, cold so bad that it can freeze the water in a fish bowl solid. Don’t believe me? Ask my sister’s friend; it actually happened to her. Poor Swimmy, we hardly knew thee.

But winter doesn’t stop there. It insists on continuing its awful reputation by embarrassing the living daylights out of everyone who dares to have fun with winter sports.

As if sports weren’t already humiliation enough, you have to add winter in. And with winter comes slippery, wet, icy cold substances that make sports all the harder and more humiliating. Skiing and snowboarding are pretty much death traps on sticks. Honestly, who would enjoy willingly throwing oneself down an icy mountain on a piece of wood? And we can’t forget hockey, the scariest, possibly most violent game ever. If the hard rubber pucks and wooden sticks won’t kill you, the ice skates or the other players most likely will.
Then, of course, we can’t forget about the social “delights” of the wintery season.

Holiday shopping! How could I have forgotten about holiday shopping? It’s so magical… until the moms start fighting over the last Elmo doll. Need I say more? The supposedly magical time of year, when children’s dreams of toys come true, are really a thin veneer for the viciousness and desperation that rear their ugly heads every winter season. Where is the charity? Where is the compassion? Where is the sanity? WHERE is that two-dollar coupon for pepper spray?

Did you know that people get legitimately depressed during winter? It’s a scientifically proven phenomenon. The affliction is called Seasonal Affective Disorder and has been studied and classified as an actual type of depression. With the onset of winter, people who have normal mental health throughout the year, and yet suffer from this disorder (SAD for short… fitting, no?) experience all the usual depression symptoms: irritability, over sleeping, lack of energy, and pessimistic feelings of hopelessness. If there’s a treatment plan for this (I’m thinking an all-expenses-paid trip to Hawaii might help), sign me up. I’m clearly suffering from SAD. I’ve got the winter blues.

Finally, the worst part of any winter season: the weather. Winter can be best described as cold and wet, two of my least favorite weather patterns. Don’t be fooled by the seemingly perfect icicle formations and powdery drifts of snow. They are both just massive globs of cold, wet awfulness. Just forget it. You’re better off just hiring a person to hit you repeatedly over the head with a sledgehammer. The cold sneaks up on you, luring those who dare to venture outside into a sense of false security before unleashing hypothermia. Once we’ve hit the months of December and January I don’t even bother venturing outside unless absolutely necessary. The high is normally around 10 degrees Fahrenheit, and, with wind chill, it generally dips below zero. On a good day. When the sun is out.

I can’t handle it. I can’t function in the cold. All I can think about is how cold and miserable and in pain I am.

In conclusion, winter is the worst, most useless season that has ever existed on this planet. It is the bane of my existence, and I hate it with a fiery passion that is only rivaled by my intense fear of power tools and axe murderers. But that is beside the point. Ultimately, I think we should take it to a vote. I propose that we abolish winter once and for all. We should just go straight from autumn to spring, no cold, no misery, and no banes of existence. Who’s with me?

Chills in the air signal a flurry of frolicsome festivities

By Kara Kratcha

Almost every day at work, at least one customer comes and sighs, “I guess it’s cold for good now.” My perhaps befuddling response? “I know. Finally.”

Winter is the best season for many reasons. First of all, consider winter’s seasonal foil: summer. I don’t know if you’ve ever had the absolute displeasure of taking gym class during the summer, so let me enlighten you about that experience. Students in my class had to run drills on Gay field in mid-summer St. Louis heat and humidity.

The weather was so awfully hot that my vision tunneled and I almost passed out. This medical near emergency was not the fault of the gym class but rather the weather in which it took place. St. Louis summers are dangerous and should probably be discontinued for everyone’s safety.

Perhaps not everyone is as susceptible to humidity as I am. Still, physical activity seems much easier in the cold weather. Athletes sweat considerably less, which is a definite plus, and have better endurance when the heat is not dragging them down. I was fortunate to witness the first meeting of the Winter Running Club, and its members looked, in my humble opinion, quite pleased to be running in the newly cooling weather.

So maybe winter makes a lot of people stay inside. Perhaps that’s a good thing, though. Upon the arrival of warm weather in the spring, students can hardly focus on their schoolwork. Whether you like school or not, it’s a necessary part of the teenage life. Isn’t it better to stay focused with the cold weather for most of the year than to be distracted by the warm weather all the time?

Winter is also the best time for food. The return of soup—the best food ever—to the cafeteria made me extremely happy. Of course, the greatest of food holidays happen in the cold months—Thanksgiving turkey, Christmas cookies, peppermint lattes (available for a limited time only at Starbucks during the winter only), Hanukkah latkes—I could go on. Even the snow can easily be converted to a sno-cone with the aide of a little Kool-Aid. Yum. How could anyone claim that winter is bad when it is clearly so delicious?

Additionally, winter has the amazing capability of turning the usually unfashionable into layering divas. In order to stay warm, one can pile on boots, tights, a tee shirt, and, most importantly, a big sweater. Voila—instant cold-weather fashionista. Sweaters and tights are a staple that would not be possible if not for winter, and such an absence would be tragic.

Then again, paradoxically, buildings are warmer in the winter than in the summer. When school first started and it was still 90-plus degrees outside, just about every room in which I had a class was over air-conditioned. This left me in a state of temperature change-induced confusion. Forced to dress lightly by the hot weather, I had no defense against the frigidity of the inside of the school. Worse, fast temperature changes from cold to hot make me sneeze, so I was sneezing every time I entered or entered the building. I don’t have this problem in the winter because the building’s heating brings the school to a good, toasty internal temperature.

Of course, I couldn’t write about winter without praising such activities as sledding and outdoor ice-skating. Sledding is the epitome of universal winter fun—the exhilarating ride down, the cursory check for injuries, the challenge of trekking back up the hill to do it all again all seem, to me, essential to any childhood. Without winter, no child would be able to experience that joy. Ice-skating, while possible without cold weather, is improved immensely when in an outdoor setting. The natural chill just begs for hot chocolate breaks between forays onto the ice.

Some snow-haters may complain that the snow keeps them from arriving to school or work on time. The only reason St. Louis has a problem keeping streets clear during snowstorms, however, is that the winter weather here is so wishy-washy. It doesn’t snow quite enough here to have heavy-duty street clearing equipment. If St. Louis would just take a cue from northern cities like Chicago or Milwaukee and increased the snowfall and had a real winter, then the city’s snow clearing technology would improve by necessity.

Unquestionably, winter is the most romantic season. With a constant chill in the air, winter just begs for closeness and flirtation. The scenery of winter—twinkling snow-covered stretches of land, white-lit trees, and crystal clear night skies—easily inspires romance. Can summer, with its sticky air and radiating sun, claim the same?

Overall, winter is just better than summer. Without winter, there would be no four-season rotation. One long stretch of endless summer seems rather tedious. Given the choice, I would much rather be cold than hot. In fact, as soon as I graduate, I’m getting out of here and going north. It’s much more wintry up there.