Why I Think Winter Is A Crock O' Nasty

I know its only November and it hasn't even got really snowy or really cold yet. But as the white begins to pile up here in London I am already reminded of why I think winter is dumb. Do I think there are some profoundly beautiful and awe inspiring parts of winter - yes. Do I think there are some fun things you can do in winter that you can't do at other times - yes. Those things are not the point of this ranting, griping, crank.

My main complaint with winter (aside from sub zero temperatures) is this: everything takes longer (I have composed many songs about this in my head). You could accuse me of western rushing attitudes and tell me that winter is God's way of making me slow down. You could do that, but you'd be wrong.

Let's compose a little list of things that take longer because of winter and all its accoutrement.

1. showers - no longer can I dash out apres shower, now everything must be moisterized lest it dry up and fall off or crack, itch and burn
2. getting dressed - just throw on a dress? heeeeck no! long johns, pants or tights ('cause dem hose just ain't gonna cut it), shirt, long sleeved shirt, sweater - layers, layers, layers - a person could die of skin suffication.
   
3. leaving the house - throw on flip flops, grab keys and go - oh, no. put on socks, put on boots, put on and zip up 20lbs coat, find hat, find mitts, begin sweating
4. using a car - fight polar bear on way to car, use mitts to dig way into car, start car, I said saaa-aaaart the car, turn up anything that makes heat and defrosts things, dig out scraper/brush, scraaaape scraaaaape scraaaaape, brush brush brush brush brush <-- repeat brush and scrape routine for 20 minutes, brush snow and ice off self, wring out now sopping wet mittens, get in car. oh, not so fast - silly, you forgot that you have to shovel the driveway in order to even get this freshly cleared car out. i hope it's not snowing heavily while you're shovelling 'cause all your hard brushing work is about to get undone
5. driving anywhere - main roads are plowed and salted? sweet! what's that? you don't live on the 401? oh, your house is on a purely residential street, oh and that won't get plowed until 4pm the day after it snowed like mad. ok, so it takes you 20 minutes to ram your way out to a main route (this is added to the 20 or so it took you to get your car ready to leave the driveway - and add to that the half an hour it took you to shovel) . now you're on that main route but traffic is moving at an astounding 36 km/h which should have you at work only 3 hours late (you have second thoughts about having won in the fight against the polar bear and wonder if just having let him eat you would have solved a lot more problems).

So by my count something (exiting the house and getting to a main route in a city) that would have taken you 5 minutes in June has now taken around an hour and a quarter. And there my friends is my just some of the fuel for my fire of thinking winter is dumb.