Surly Tuesday: I'll Complain About the Snow if I Bloody Well Feel Like It

To everyone on Facebook saying "quit whining about the snow, it happens every year, you should be ready for it by now" - FUCK OFF. Unless you're someone I know and like, because I haven't bothered to go back and check who actually said it. If I know and like you - sod off (I'm sufficiently fired up that you still get some kind of expletive containing an 'off' directed at you, but we're still friends).

A lot of things happen every year. We get colds. We get stomach bugs. I get seasonal depression. I have a snow brush in my car that has the head on the wrong way - perpendicular to the handle instead of parallel, like a toothbrush, which means that it's been designed by some disciple of Satan to pull snow down on me instead of brushing it away anywhere useful, WHY WOULD ANYONE EVEN MAKE THIS KIND OF SNOW BRUSH AND OFFER IT FOR SALE??? I claim my right to complain about all of these in a timely and spirited fashion (just ask my husband, the hapless buyer of the aforementioned FUSB (Fucking Useless Snow Brush).

Complaining is one of the pleasures and comforts of life. Everybody has shit going on. Just because somebody else's shit isn't the particular kind of shit that gets to you doesn't mean you get to tell them to shut up about it (without being considered a big jerk). In certain very specific cases - say, someone very very rich is on their yacht being waited on hand and foot, with their loving and faithful spouse by their side, surrounded by their four beautiful children whom they had no trouble conceiving, and they complain that their gold lamé bikini is chafing? Maybe, MAYBE, you should tell them to take a breath and re-evaluate. Otherwise? Cork it.

I think of complaining as vaguely akin to perspiring when it's hot. You perspire, and then a breeze or a fan blows on the perspiration and cools you off so you don't die of spontaneous combustion or something. Similarly, something crappy happens, you complain, friends offer sympathy and commiseration and you don't explode or sink into a boggy mire of despondence. It's a time-honoured tradition.

I get that it's not cool if someone does nothing but complain, especially if there are things they could do to improve their situation. I get that perspective is sometimes useful and that other people often have it much worse. But in the full flush of that cold, or stomach bug, or seasonal depression, or first day driving in the snow with clenched fists and knotted stomach, how much of a percentage of a fuck do I give about perspective? A VERY, VERY LOW FUCK PERCENTAGE.

Moving to Hawaii isn't a viable option for many people who live in places with long, cold winters. Our jobs and families are here. Some of us look really bad in bikinis. And we love where we live, despite the fact that for a good chunk of the year it feels like the outside is trying to kill us (come ON, that thing where Mother Nature drifts down a gorgeous soft white fleecy blanket of snow, and then drops the temperature fifteen degrees so everything turns sharp and chunky and if you slip and fall you might stab yourself in the jugular? That is a HOSTILE ENVIRONMENT) . So we stay, and occasionally we complain. Lord help you if you try to stop us.

Comments

Hannah said…
I will admit I roll my eyes to the heavens during the first snowfall when people drive like assholes - slow down, nutters! IT IS SLIPPERY NOW.

But as to the rest of it? Yup. Agree.
StephLove said…
We had so much snow last year I wouldn't mind if it didn't snow at all this year, but B loves snow so if I complain too bitterly about it, things get tense between us.

I am making a mental note to complain to you instead.
Swistle said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
Swistle said…
Another one that gets to me is the type that's "Everyone who's complaining about the cold now, don't come complaining about the heat in summer!" No, I retain my right to complain about two opposite things that are BOTH uncomfortable.
clara said…
This is. Well. I won't say it's why I avoid dealing with people on facebook at all because I don't. I just avoid using it much because everyone is so goddamned annoying. Except everyone who is here on Allison's blog. Obvs.

We don't get snow -- we get perpetual giant grey clouds and pissing rain over our heads from November until March and NO you don't have to SHOVEL IT but that doesn't mean the dark sky at 4 fucking pm doesn't make you want to drink heavily starting at 4 pm.

November, also, is too damned early for snow. You have my sympathies.

xo
Nicole said…
I do complain about the cold because it's winter from October-April here, and sometimes it snows in May, and sometimes it freezes in June, and my hands and feet are in pain usually during that time. I'm trying to complain less because sometimes it doesn't help me BUT SOMETIMES IT FEELS GOOD TO BITCH ABOUT IT.

"Just because somebody else's shit isn't the particular kind of shit that gets to you doesn't mean you get to tell them to shut up about it" - YES THIS EXACTLY.
alison said…
Snow is beautiful, but also annoying as fuck. It can exist in these two truths at once. Complain away, my friend, complain away. I might just harmonize with you.
Lola said…
Freakin' adore this post and I am going to Maui for Xmas (hates gonna hate) but don't tell anyone that I'm not planning to return back here with my family:)
slow panic said…
I think you should complain every damn day about the snow if you so wish. Although I now live in the south where I complain when it is below 49 degrees (seriously I do) I grew up in Minnesota and I remember the long cold dark winters. Ugh. The endless endless snow. So complain your heart out. I've got your back on this one.

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