Ok, I admit it. I have the winter sniffles. I am trying my best to combat them, but I feel like with every coming day without sunshine, I am fighting an already lost battle. Not that I am doing badly, no; this year I have beaten my personal record of not falling into my winter sleep on the 1st of November. But things are getting so sad, and sleepy, and anxious lately… which gave me an idea – why don’t we just collectively cancel winter?
Come on, people do things like this all the time. Check change.org if you don’t believe me. People petition for everything – for changing democratic election results to changing the colour of their teacher’s car (because it clashes with their on-school parking lot). To cancel winter is a noble enough cause.
But if you don’t believe me, and you are not jumping up and down with happiness at the very sound of the words cancel winter, let me present you my case.
VOTE CANCEL WINTER 2017.
There is no snow in the UK anyway
I remember my first winter in the UK and a phone call that I received from my mother, panicked, that the entire UK is covered in snow and we are all doomed. I think I have even talked about it before, but it is such a memorable conversation. One of the Polish news channels was showing some footage of heavy blizzards they got from who knows where and it got her worried that I had been snowed in. Well, I hadn’t. The sky was perfectly clear that day.
To be perfectly honest, and my boyfriend will get very angry when he reads it, but I don’t consider anything that I have ever seen in the UK worthy of the word snow.
I remember also one year when something white fell from the sky and it took me 1.5h to travel on the bus from Notting Hill to Hammersmith and halfway through I regretted I hadn’t just walked, but then again I have a heavy, lazy bum, so there is that.
Sure, it may snow in the north. But then again, it is THE NORTH. For all we know they may be keeping polar bears in their gardens there. Or was it Russia…?
You see? We have no need for winter here, may as well vote: cancel winter and get our rain back!
And for places where snow exists – it melts
For the first few hours of snow we all turn into Lorelai Gilmore – even moany old ladies like me. The first few hours of snow are great. Everything is suddenly infinitely more beautiful, and it sparkles, and magic is in the air.
But there is one thing all snow lovers around seem to forget.
Snow melts.
IT MELTS. From this pure happiness of fluff it turns into grey sludge we need to live with for days. Everything gets dirty. Even our souls (probably) (if we have any). And all of the dog poops suddenly pop out too, and since they are also all sludged-up, they are even worse than usual.
Vote: cancel winter. Only that can protect us from this madness.
Everyone covers the roads and pavements with salt
Ever lost a good, new pair of shoes because of stupid salt? Vote: cancel winter.
Some people don’t cover the pavements with salt
I practice ballet eight times a week – once on a Friday afternoon, and seven times every morning when I leave my flat. Well, it may be more of a contemporary dance to be honest. I am not very graceful at it.
Sometimes I joke that I cannot wait to break my leg so I can sue the administrator of my building for all his possessions, and all of the possessions of his family three generations each side, but that is simply insane. I don’t know what type of shoes I am supposed to wear not to slip on the ice outside. I am wearing flat, WINTER boots.
You cannot trust people with winter. You need to vote: cancel winter to protect yourself.
It is impossible to buy a warm enough jumper
Apparently according to many clothing labels a jumper is something I would not let my cat wear in the winter, and my cat has fur.
I, you may be surprised to hear, have no fur whatsoever.
Most jumpers are either cropped, short sleeved, plain see-through, very thin… Finding one that keeps you warm is a very time-consuming task; which kind of explains why I wear three of them to work, on rotation.
I love my pretty jumpers. They are very good for early spring. Some of them may just about make it in November. But proper winter? Please.
Wanna keep warm? Vote: cancel winter.
We keep drinking disgusting cold medication
There aren’t many things I would give all my belongings away for, but not having to go through a cold ever again is one of them. The single least threatening condition in the world is simultaneously the single most annoying one. Maybe to some extent it is good – maybe on top of being worried for one’s life, no one really needs to be exposed to all the frustrations of the common cold. Maybe a cold has its purpose and such.
But January hits and everyone has a cold. Look around your offices. Everyone has a cold. Or just had a cold. Or is going to have a cold again, because everyone is coughing at them.
End this vicious circle. Vote: cancel winter.
All offices are not shut down
We keep saying how much we progressed as a society and as a species, but the people of the past had it figured out way better than we did – as soon as winter hit, everyone would just lock themselves at home and wait for the spring.
This may be an oversimplification, and the reason so many religions introduce a form of lent in early springtime, but with the current development of industry and technology in general, my question is:
Why don’t we?
Some people would go nuts from boredom, but that is just collateral, right? We could do with a winter-long holiday. If we can just sit by the fireplace, hugging a cat and drinking some hot chocolate, maybe no one needs to vote: cancel winter. We could vote: make winter yearlong instead!
No more cold streets, no more cold AC some crazy person puts on IN THE MIDDLE OF THE GLACIAL ERA, no more queues to Starbucks… The tube could go on strike for the entirety of winter and no one would care, as no one would be taking the tube anyway. Win win.
Christmas can be done in the summer anyway
Look at Australia. If they managed to do it, amongst all the deadly spiders and such, why can’t we? We could have a Christmas barbecue! In the garden! And fake snow!
And just imagine a New Year Eve when it is ACTUALLY WARM. All of these hours put into fixing our hair would finally not go to waste under some hat. And we could wear all of those fancy dresses without freezing to death.
Make this dream come true. Vote: cancel winter.
Please.
I am begging you.
Before we all go insane.
