The Similkameen News Leader
Editorial
November 13, 2007
PET PEEVES - CHAPTER 2
Winter.
We have never gotten used to the fact that for part of the year we have to adapt for cooler weather. We think it goes back to our childhood and poorly insulated homes, or it could be one of those rare allergies you never hear about.
Frostitis an allergy related to cold weather.
If there was such a thing, we can pretty much prove we suffer from it, as once it gets cold outside, we start to shiver.
Sometimes the thought of October coming soon is enough to set off a fit of the shivers that can only be staved off by bundling up in front of the television with a big mug of hot chocolate and our memories of Fall Fair.
The shivers have got to be a side effect along with our blatant disregard for wearing extra layers, inability to properly operate a snow shovel, ice scraper and snow brush, fear of antibiotics, flu shots, chicken soup, vitamin C, cough medicines, herbal remedies, anything fur or fleece-lined, boots, mittens, gloves, toques, scarves, ear muffs, winter tires, black ice, snow banks and Boxing Day sales.
We'd love to be able to call in sick from November to March and blame it on the seasonal outbreak of frostitis but we'd never be able to pull it off.
We chose to live in a part of the world that has four very distinct seasons, winter, spring, summer and back to school.
We can't even blame the new change in Daylight Savings Time for it.
We just don't like winter.
But we are getting used to it. Lucky for us living in the Upper Similkameen Valley we often get to celebrate the joys of winter by digging out our driveway, skidding our way into work and spending part of our Christmas budget on the heating bill.
Speaking of which, what we should have done was signed up to a program that would have guaranteed us a
'locked in' temperature for the next five years, say something in the 22 to 25 degree range for twelve months of the year.
Of course, for something like that to work we'd have to move to somewhere tropical, where the Canadian Dollar has some real value, like Arizona or California.
So instead we are stuck in the Similkameen waiting for the snow to start falling and our frostitis to start flaring up so we can complain about how cold it is and how we miss those blistering hot days of summer.
Thankful that our sunburnitis has finally cleared up.
