I'm a weather wussy and I admit it

Dear Old Man Winter: Stop it.

I readily admit I am a weather wussy.

I am not a fan of snow, nor cold and when you put them both together as this fine nation does every year...well, let's just say a hacienda in Mexico sounds better every day.

My dislike of winter weather begins long before the snow flies. It actually starts when the frost begins.

You know those frigid morning where you haven't adjusted your schedule to accommodate the time you need to scrape off the diamond-hard layer of frozen water on your windshield.

And then there is the frost on the inside of the window. As the car is warming up and you have take a credit card out of your wallet and scrape the interior of your car windows, sending those little white snow-like bits of frost all over the dash.

And now you are late for work so, with the heater on full blast, you gingerly make your way out of your driveway while scrunching down to look through the tiny spot at the bottom of the windshield that the heater has managed to melt.

When you get to work, the windshield is clear and your car is toasty warm – just in time to park it for eight hours so it can return to being a car-sicle for you warm up again so you can go home.

At least you don't have to shovel frost, but you know when the frost comes, the white frozen water that falls from the sky is not that far behind.

One thing I do find very amusing about snow is all the people who say it caught them by surprise.

How does an entire season catch anyone by surprise. Unless you just moved here from that hacienda I was talking about, you know snow will eventually find its way to your doorstep.

It's too bad there was not some sort of warning the snow was coming. Perhaps a device with numbers, days of the week and months on it that would indicate what season it is.
I do not know what to call this device, but it sure would come in handy to help people figure out roughly when winter is going to make an appearance. We could even hang it on the wall where it would be easy to see.
Perhaps the old timers, which is pretty much anyone over two years old, could tell those drivers that every year, winter happens in Canada.
That way, they will not be caught by surprise.

When the first snow hits, local tire shops are swamped with surprised who people who thought maybe this year there would be no snow and are stunned to find out that there is.

Imagine that, snow in Canada in the wintertime.

The first snowfall of the year also brings with it accidents as all those surprised people forget that snow is not only cold, it is slippery.

Every year the RCMP issue an official warning, urging people to slow down and drive carefully.

That is right up there with the warning on a hair dryer that it is not to be used in the shower.

Do we really need an official warning to figure these things out?
I guess we do, actually, because there they are.

I do admit the first snow fall of the year (you know, the one that catches everyone by surprise) is usually the toughest one to drive in because you have to re-learn how a car handles in the snow.

But if you ease up on the gas pedal and remember that tip about snow being slippery, you should be just fine.

We still have a few more weeks of winter ahead of us so remember drive safe, defrost your windows and dream of that hacienda where the coldest thing you will have to worry about is the ice in your drink.

Copyright 2017, Darren Handschuh

Dear winter - you suck

Once again the grip of winter is firmly upon us and I for one say ba-humbug.

That is not a negative remark toward Christmas, but it is a comment on that dreaded, frosty, icy, cold, miserable time of year that happens every year no matter what.

You would think being born and raised in Canada I would be used to winter and cold and snow and all the other miserable aspects of the non-summer months.

I am used to is, but that does not mean I have to like it.

I am just not a fan of winter.

Running out to your car in the morning as your breath transforms into ice crystals and the boogers in your nose freeze is always a fun way to start the day.

If the lock on your car is not frozen, you can enter your vehicle with relative ease, but then you make the mistake of letting that crystalizing breath collide with the windshield and suddenly you have ice on the inside of your car.

But first, you have to get rid of the frost on the outside so you start your car, crank up the heater – even though for the first few minutes it is blowing cold air – and then climb out and start scraping away the handiwork of Jack Frost (who is a jerk by the way).

If you are smart and plan ahead, you will have an ice scrapper handy. Which I do, unless one of my kids have gotten their grubby little paws on it then who knows where it has ended up. (I suspect the back seat of their own car.)

I am pretty sure anyone who has ever owned a car has had to dig into their wallet and pull out a credit card or something similar and scrape the frost away as you lose feeling in your fingers in 1.2 seconds all the while muttering something about children, ice scrapers and why you should not have had children.

With the outside mostly scraped clean, you once again return to the inside of your vehicle that is just slightly warmer than the outside.

The inside of the window is still covered in man-made frost, so you dig out the plastic card again and scrape the inside of the windshield causing the dash to be covered by an interior snow storm.

But because you continue to breath and fill the car with humidity, it just frosts up again, so you end up driving down the street scrunched up in your seat so you can see through that little spot at the bottom of the windshield where they heater is finally starting to gain ground on the assault from that Jack idiot.

The more you drive, the bigger the clear spot gets and the entire windshield will typically be completely cleared about three seconds before you arrive at your destination.

But on occasion you forego the scraper altogether and opt for a liquid assault on Jack's handiwork.

You can use the windshield washer fluid to remove the frost for you, but as we all know, the plan is flawed because the washer fluid freezes on the windshield and while it does create some pretty patterns it is not conducive to roadway viewing.

So what do you do?

You spray even more windshield washer fluid in an effort to rid your viewing portal of the frozen fiasco that is part of the joys of winter.

Sure you don't have to scrape, but you end up using half a gallon of windshield wiper fluid just to get down the block.

So, no I am not a fan of winter, but I know this too shall pass – and the sooner the better.

Copyright 2015, Darren Handschuh

Snow, snow go away. No really, I mean it - go away

I hate snow.
OK, hate may be a bit strong of a word. How about detest, despise, loathe – feel free to substitute any one of those and you get the general idea of my thoughts on the frozen particles that float down from the heavens.
As a child, I loved the snow – what kid doesn't? Making snow-people (that is the PC name for Frosty's kin) was always a popular pastime. My friends and I would spend who knows how long making an elaborate snow-individual complete with carrot nose etc.
We would stand back and admire our work for about three minutes before smashing it to pieces. I don't know why we did this, but we did, every time.
We were also big on creating snow forts. We had visions of a castle-like structure complete with towers, firing ports for throwing snowballs through and walls so thick they could withstand all but the most aggressive onslaught. What we ended up with was half a dozen huge balls of snow all pushed together in a semi-circle. Not quite a castle, but close enough for our young minds.
Some of us would defend the castle while others attacked. We would then switch sides and the battle would rage until we couldn't feel our toes and a mug of hot chocolate beckoned.
We would also spend hours tobogganing at a nearby hill.
And as I got older, I had the privilege of helping dad shovel the white stuff, but not even that could diminish my enjoyment of the cold, powdered moisture.
When I got my driver's license, snow introduced a whole new world of fun. Sliding cars around an empty parking lot, pulling Rockfords – where you slam on the emergency brake and snap the back end of the car around – was all part of the new found form of winter entertainment.
Gone were the snow-people and snow forts, replaced by motorized mayhem.
Toward the end of the teen years, and for many years following, I never really gave snow much of a thought. It came, it melted, it was gone.
Year after year, the cycle would repeat itself. It is called the changing of the seasons and being in Canada, it happens every year – guaranteed.
But as I age, I find myself disliking the white stuff that was once such a source of enjoyment.
For some reason I have grown almost obsessed with snow removal. As soon as it snows, I must clear the driveway, sidewalk, stairs and any other path I deem needs to be snow free.
That is why the recent massive dump of snow nearly killed me. Not the shovelling part – although that was rather taxing on my aging muscles – but the fact I could not keep the areas snow free that my brain decided needed to be snow free.
Because the snow was falling faster than the hair off my head, no matter how many times I shovelled, the paths were always covered.
So maybe it is a huge dump of snow that I hate.
Perhaps a little snow here, a little there is not so bad.
Hmm, the more I think about it the more I realize, yup, I hate snow. I hate how it freezes your windshield wipers, how it sticks to your boots and gets tracked into the house where it melts into a puddle and you step in it with your sock feet, how it sneaks its way over the top of your hiking boots, how it makes the roads sloppy and slushy, how it – well it could be a long list.
I am definitely a spring, summer and fall kind of guy.
However, having said that, there is one redeeming quality winter has – there are no bugs, specifically there are no spiders.
So I guess winter is not all that bad, except for the cold, and the snow and the...

Copyright 2015 Darren Handschuh