Winter is gross.

It’s spring. The sun exists for us to squint at yet again. Our winter-addled eyes may have a hard time focusing on the terrain around us, as it’s now adequately illuminated and not just slouching under the weight of a grey sky, but it’s worth it. There are smells in the air and a spring in my step.

There are people who say that winter is the bee’s knees. They shout through chapped lips at the rest of us, obstinately stating that they like nothing better than the “crisp air” and “refreshing wind”. They talk about how awake they feel when walking outside in sub-zero temperatures. Bull. You know what else is crisp? A knife in the gut. Really wakes you up. And a quick car crash into a cold ocean is also pretty refreshing, if at least for a little bit.

Humans took a turn for the stupid when they decided to move away from the Great Rift Valley. I think the conversation went a bit like this:

“Hey Oog, I think this place is pretty great. We have various animals we can chase down with our superior stamina. I’ve seen water fall from the sky once in a great while, but it’s not like it happens enough to make me stare moodily out of my cave and play depressing antelope-skin-drum music at everyone. Plus we look great in these loincloths!”

“I hear ya, Oogah, but what if we moved?”

(A long pause ensued. All that could be heard was the peaceful rustling of wind through the grass and trees. It smelled like heaven.)

“What the hell is wrong with you, Oog?”

“Hear me out. Something tells me there’s a place with a ton more sky-water. It sky-waters like almost every day, enough to make your skin get all wrinkly and nasty. Plus all the water on the ground will make your nice tough feet all soft, and you’ll get cool little bubbles on them when you walk and the bubbles will hurt all the time. If you’re lucky they’ll pop and then get all red and then the red will spread and you will die.”

"Did someone hit you on the head?”

“No, and keep listening. It’ll be dark there much, much more of the time. Like, half of the time it’ll be so dark that the air will get really cold. So cold that the sky-water will stop being sky-water and will become sky-ice. I don’t even know what ice is but I know it’s crazy. It’s hard water that makes you die if you lie on it too much. And plants and animals don’t like it either, so they hide in caves where we can’t get them or they die.”

“What does that mean? How the hell will we eat?”

“Oh, we’ll have to invent all sorts of crazy ways of making sure food stays okay and that we have enough through the dark cold times. We’ll leave fish in containers until it rots and then we’ll eat it. We’ll leave plants in containers until they rot and then we’ll eat them. We’ll take animal milk and let it rot and then we’ll eat it. We’ll take fruit and then leave it out until it rots and then we’ll drink it and then do really stupid things to impress each other, and many of us will do things that are so dumb that we’ll die.”

(Oogah started eyeing his club at this point.)

Do you see what I mean? There was no reason to leave. That was our first big mistake. We’ve made a few since - war, open sewers, Matchbox 20 - but embracing the insanity of winter was the first and worst. Think about it:

Summer time has flowers, beach parties, the smell of meat cooking on a barbecue, the sounds of people enjoying each other’s company outside, the peaceful buzz of bees doing their bee things, the crash of waves that won’t freeze you instantly, time off of school, ice cream, memories, nostalgia, perfection.

Winter has runny noses, a dressing routine that takes at least ten minutes in order to evade frostbite, the cold before snow, the cold during snow, and the cold and mud and grime after snow, the sounds of pipes bursting, the sounds of a father/mother swearing loudly when then find water leaking from said pipes, the crunch of fishtailing your new car into a telephone pole, cold toes, cold noses, grey (the worst “color”).

Oh, but it has coffee or tea! You know, like how winter people constantly remind you of how cozy you feel when you curl up with your favorite culpa? That’s the same argument as “well, I may have had an arm chewed off by that shark, but at least I lost weight!”

Winter. Gross. I hate it. Thank goodness it’s spring again!