I hate it when they're right.....

Many years ago, when I was a senior in high school, I had a boyfriend. Well, I THOUGHT he was a boyfriend, but Chris Rock later explained to me that I was in fact, not his girlfriend. Anyway, I dated this guy before I could drive, as I didn't drive until I was in college that winter.

One night I was talking to him on the phone, and I expressed excitement at the fact that snow had been predicted for that evening. Even though I had long outgrown playing in the snow and sledding (fun activities, but unless you can guarantee me a completely waterproof outfit and that i won't sled over a rock, I'll just hang back and watch you do it), but I loved to just watch snow. I still find watching falling snow extremely calming, as the change in barometric pressure tends to make things very still and quiet.

After I expressed my excitement, he said to me "Do you know WHY you like snow? Because you don't drive. Once you start to drive, you'll hate it as much as I do"

He expressed his interest to not ever see me again in September, so he was long gone by the next snow. I drove in the snow for the first time in the winter of 1994, in my first car, a 1988 Dodge Omni, which were small little cars. And as I dug my way out of the white blocks of frozen precipitation and drove on the roads lined with boulders of blackened slush and snow, and slid on the bridges and pumped my brakes, watched daredevils swerve around as they passed others as if the roads were as dry as the Sahara, and squinted to see out of the thin strip of clear glass on my windshield which was so small due to my frozen and warped windshield wipers, I got very angry.

I was angry because I forced to admit that he was right. I was beginning to hate the snow. Dammit.

As an adult, snow becomes and obstacle - something you have to shovel rather than something you get to play in. And I've yet to have a job that offers snow days. Once I worked for a store that closed during a level 2 snow emergency, but I'd already driven there by the time this was decided, so that doesn't count.

But I will say this. If I remember to buy bread, milk, toilet paper and cat food before the snow hits, and all I have to do is be at home staying warm, I will open my front curtains and watch the snow fall, and I'll still find it very peaceful. And I still love that.