The Winter of My Discontent

Dear Old Man Winter:

First let me say that I'm a big fan of your work but I'm going to have to ask you to hit the bricks already. Yeah, like today if that's possible. Don't get me wrong, there are days that I really love you. Like that one day back in 1985 when I got a day off from school and I built a snow fort that made the Alamo look like a frigging joke. The problem is, we're going on five months now which means that my patience as well as salt supply is running thin. More to the point, it's March and I just don't take too kindly to enduring numbingly frigid temperatures and Doppler 9000 winter storm warnings around the clock. You've outstayed your welcome and I for one am saying enough is enough.

What do I plan to do about this you ask? Please, isn't it obvious? "Ask, believe, receive.....ask, believe, receive...ask, believe, receive." Yeah that's right, I'm going to send you back to the cold and desolate hole you crawled out of using the sheer force of my will via the principles of "The Secret". Shhhh, don't tell anyone. Trust me buddy, you're no match for the law of attraction. How do I know? Well, just the other day I asked, believed and received for a totally unproductive day at work and wouldn't you know it that's exactly what materialized. And I'm not talking about your run of the mill lack of productivity, we're talking record breaking levels of being unproductive. In fact, the principles of the Secret are so powerful that it's going on about 7 days straight. That may have something to do with the fact that I haven't yet asked, believed or received for a return to productivity but that's neither here nor there right now.

Listen, I'm gonna level with you. This whole thing just boiled to the surface yesterday. See, I drove about an hour and a half out of town to go to a concert on Tuesday night. A concert that I had been looking forward to for months. So despite the Doppler 9000 predictions of a big winter storm, I hit the open road with the unwavering optimism that has become my trademark. The drive there was fine, the concert amazing but things kind of got dicey from there. While at the concert, approximately two feet of snow fell and as we left the concert the skies opened up and began raining down ice pellets to the point where we could barely walk down the street without getting chunks of ice lodged in our faces. Let's just say it wasn't your best work. Obviously the road conditions were treacherous to say the least. With the sound of my mother's voice in my head, I decided to stay overnight with a friend to avoid risking life and limb. The conditions were so bad that I probably should have phoned into work the next day and said "See ya tomorrow suckers.....if you're lucky!" (which FYI is my traditional greeting when informing my boss I won't be in for the day). The problem was that there was too much going on at work that day for me to phone in and I knew I had to be there. Ordinarily I'm a big fan of phoning it in when it comes to work but I'm a lot better at doing it in the figurative sense as opposed to the literal one. I guess I have my parents to blame for that. Not for the fact that I phone it in on occasion at work but for the fact that I rarely miss work. They instilled in us the importance of showing up to school or work no matter the possible (and often likely) risks we posed to ourselves and those around us. Like that time in the second grade when I was up for the perfect attendance award so they sent me to school with the chicken pox and I ended up infecting half of the school. Yeah, I wasn't so popular after that...but come to think of it I wasn't so popular before that either...but I digress. You might have seen the movie that was based loosely on my experience? It starred Morgan Freeman and was called "Outbreak". Listen, all's I'm saying is that if two feet of snow, a plague like downpour of ice pellets and a two hour drive that takes five can't get a sister a day off from work then it just seems a bit pointless to me.

Here's the deal - I'm not unreasonable so I'd like to think we can come to some sort of an agreement before things get out of hand. Here are your options: If you get me a day off work within the next week I'll call the whole thing off. If not, you leave me no choice but to open up a can of "The Secret" on you and you do that at your peril.